Picking up from last time –
One thing I didn’t know about hot air ballooning is that you can skydive from one!
I’ve never been skydiving, but I’ve heard it’s a stressful experience – that it’s loud and the plane feels rickety and fast and that it’s just kind of stressful. And I’m sure there’s something exciting to that – getting your adrenaline pumping the whole time.
But I also think it might be so cool and fun (and a great dichotomy) to have this nice super peaceful ride up, just to jump out of a basket.
For our ride, we went up about 3,000 feet. But hot air balloons can go much higher. I think our pilot was talking about 14,000 feet (for skydiving purposes)! There is a threshold where the balloon is only allowed to go so high if there’s oxygen for all passengers on board. So, hot air balloons have lots of possibility.
Another thing I learned, not on the actual day, but by watching a video from another Sunrise Balloons ride (the company we went with), is that proposing to someone on a hot air balloon is a terrible idea (in my opinion – unless you want your proposal to be hilarious)!
Because the basket is split up into compartments, the guy didn’t even have enough room to get down on one knee. He was awkwardly trying to position his body. I felt so bad for him. So he gave up on that and gave his little speech. He’s doing the whole ramp up of “all this time with you has been amazing, etc.” and when he gets to the actual, “Will you marry me?” WHOOSH! You hear the loud sound the burner makes when the balloon has to adjust.
It just seemed so awkward and sad but soooo funny. I couldn’t tell if the girl was in shock or was more just like “who thought this would be a good idea?” But she definitely wasn’t coming off as all that into it… Though she eventually said yes (even though it seemed reluctant). Of course, I don’t know the ins and outs of their relationship. There’s way more involved in the decision to get married than the balloon ride. But I would so not recommend it, ’cause in practice, it seems to be way less romantic than one might imagine!
And this is where I’ll pick up next time.