Ballooning

12 hours of work yesterday and I get a phone call from Mom's cousin. "Do you and your Mom want to go up in a hot air balloon in the morning?" How could I say no. I have been wanting to go up for a long time, and have tried many times but wind is a little difficult to predict. So we made the plan. I got home from work and told Mom and she was very excited too. So we got everything prepared so we would be ready before the sun was even up. Finally, to bed hoping that the weather was going to cooperate.

The plan was we were going to be picked up at 5:45 this morning and head out to the launch site. I was sound asleep and all of the sudden the light was on in my room. Through squinty eyes I could see that Mom was ready to go. All dressed, glasses on, shoes on, bed made - she was ready. I rolled over and looked at the clock 3:48am. My alarm was not set until 4:45am. I guess Mom was excited for our adventure. I know that she must have even gotten up much earlier because it usually takes her about 40 minutes to get dressed. So I had her take her shoes off, get in my bed and sleep for another hour. But then she was ready to go. We got her out of bed about 5:30, gave her a can of food and were off.

We got to the launch site about 7:30 and inflated the balloon. We have seen this done hundreds of times, since the International Balloon Fiesta is here in the Land of Enchantment. But then came the exciting part. The gondola is up and the pilot looks at Mom and me and says, "Hop in!" Yeah! It really did happen, no more disappointing attempts. One more ignition of the burner and we are airborne!

Quiet all around, jack rabbits scampering below and my beautiful Mother smiling as we float over the earth. What more could I ask for to start the celebration of my birthday! Perfect.

Landing can be a little bit bumpy sometimes, but the wind was good and we only had one bump. We continued to crew for a little while, then we went back to the take off point and had a champagne toast. Our maiden flight was a success.

I finally got a very tired Mom home by about 11:00am. Fed her and we watched a movie. I still don't think she has recovered. It is becoming increasingly difficult to schedule more than one activity in the day. She gets very weak and very tired quite quickly. But I am so thankful that she does still like to do fun activities and we have people around that spoil us. Thank you all.