Adventures of a Modern Farm Family: Hot Air Balloon Ride

Last Sunday night (several hours later than we planned on) Brad, the boys, my in-laws and I loaded up in my in-laws motor home and left for Indiana. Brad and I needed to be up and ready to go for our hot air balloon ride at 6am and the boys were staying with Grandma and Grandpa until we got back.

Getting the basket ready

Me and the balloon

The weather was perfect for a flight in a hot air balloon and I was so excited. We, along with 14 other people, and the 2 operators loaded a bus and headed to our take off spot. We all watched as they unloaded the huge basket and balloon. The balloon itself was 110 feet tall and the basket could hold up to 20 people! It was amazing to see all the work that went into getting the whole contraption ready to fly. It took some help from the passengers as well. According to the pilot you have about 3 hours after sunrise before the thermal winds pick up and you need to be on the ground by then. It took about 1 hour to get everything ready. We were just about to load up when a man came over and told us we couldn’t take off. So we all worked together, quickly packed up and headed out to find a different spot. This time it was on a church’s property and they didn’t mind at all. Everyone worked really hard and we had the balloon unloaded and ready to go in 13 minutes! Just about an hour before the thermal winds were supposed to pick up.

The inside of the basket. Each compartment holds 4-5 people

Brad and the balloon

Brad helping and getting very hot

The flight was so peaceful! At first the winds were blowing us toward Lake Michigan. So we went a little higher to pick up different winds. We ended up at 10,000 feet! We saw a plane fly past us and an ultra light plane fly under us. The winds took us back the direction we needed to be…away from the lake and it was amazing how fast we were moving and changing altitude and you could hardly tell.

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On the way down the winds started to pick up and it looked like we would be able to land in a different church’s yard. Well, we were going to fast to make that landing and were soon skimming the roofs of houses in a subdivision. I thought we were going to hit their roofs. People heard, saw or received phone calls from their neighbors that there was a giant balloon in their neighborhood. We weren’t hard to miss!

Ready to go the 1st time

Inside of the balloon

We ended up landing in some undeveloped property just outside someone’s backyard. It was a very smooth landing. We attracted a very large crowd in a very short time!