Sunday, September 20, 2009

And now we return to "real" life

Well, last weekend was pretty darn good. This weekend.....sad to say more normal. And six hundred dollars later the Suburb has a brand spanking new radiator. Guess I know where my ballooning budget just went. Sigh.....maybe next year will be better.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

WOW!!

Two flights in two days!! My dear wifey does love me :-)

And Mother Nature has decided to behave. Nick and Ruthie mentioned last night that a week or so ago that they flew six nights in a row. But I will gladly take my two nights in a row. Other than Alice we had a completely different crew from the night before. And if I was going to be trying for a third night in a row (which I can't) it would probably be yet another crew. It is good to be flexible I suppose.

This flight we actually went over Morse reservoir. The other three balloons all went low and played with the boats. I heard a rumor that Gary tried washing the bottom 18 inches of his basket. I stayed high because I wanted to get west of the water so that I could practice a couple more approaches. I ended up landing about 200 yards to the right of where Nick landed (of course he was 500 yards further downwind) so my staying high didn't buy me much. But I did get a couple of approaches down to inspect the soybeans from close range.

The landing wasn't as smooth as the night before but this landing site (another new subdivision without houses) had a lot more obstacles in the form of lot signs and stakes. I was kind of indecisive about where to put it but when I put it we stuck it pretty firmly. With more experienced crew I would have been less hesitant to use my drop line but these guys were pretty much rookies all around. So we just "crash landed" with a thump. But we didn't come close to hitting anything either. Alice did a nice job of "spotting" the one stake during the deflation and we packed it up and headed that a way. But not before watching Geoff give his passengers the full flying at dusk experience. But that is another story....

So I am almost caught up for now. Of course, in a couple of weeks I'll be "itching" again.

Also, one of the Friday night crew guys and his 15 year old daughter took a BUNCH of photos and posted them at http://www.pbase.com/dowleyk/jaydotyballoon . Go have a look.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Back in the air!!

HOORAY!! For only the second time this year Trouvie got to get out of her trailer.

It was a very good flight with a very good "new subdivision" landing site.

Man! But it is neat to glide along, chat with the folks out in their back yard and with only a small pucker when I came up over a tree line (lining up on a great side yard for a landing spot) only to discover that the field between the trees and the side yard has four horses in it. I was already burning to get up over the trees. I just burnt about 10 seconds longer than I had planned and hoped that was enough to let me "coast" past the horses. Of course, it scrubbed the yard as a landing spot but none of the horses got "jumpy" so that was a good thing.

SMILE!!