Picking up from last time –
Speaking of planning things (such as proposals or any special day, such as your birthday), thank goodness everything went according to plan with my balloon ride.
I was warned on the phone that sometimes rides are cancelled or moved due to weather (and even had to give a backup date possibility).
But I figured, “Ha! Southern California? How often could that possibly happen?”
Well, apparently more often that you’d think! We heard from the pilot (and later from reviews, which I can’t believe I didn’t read first) that they don’t fly if it’s questionable in the slightest. Any fog, any strong winds, any anything and they ground the balloons. Whoa. No one on my balloon had been rescheduled and the pilot seemed quite surprised.
So, thank goodness for that! But uh, I guess that’s something to keep in mind if you’re coming from out of town and hoping to go ballooning.
As the sun started to come up more and the ride started to come to an end, it was becoming harder to maneuver the direction of the balloon. It seems like the hotter it gets, the harder it is. (Hot air rises faster than cool air, but when the air around you is hot, you’re in more of a battle with it). Yeah, science!
(Or at least sort of science-ish. I obviously don’t have a wild understanding of hot air balloons, air molecules, or any of that – but I do feel like I know more than before I went!).
Chris (the pilot) had warned us that we probably wouldn’t land in the same place (we didn’t). But he said “you’ll like it better that way, ’cause you’ll get to ride the party bus back.”
I thought he was joking, referring to a normal shuttle as the party bus. But no. Legitimately, after we landed, a bus with a stripped pole picked us up. At 7:50am.
(I put it on my snapchat story with just the time and no caption. Just like “Yep. This makes sense.”)
The party bus dropped us off back where we started.
I started drifting off a little while in the car, but thankfully since Alex was driving, it didn’t matter!
We also plugged in my phone and fed it through the stereo (mainly so we could hear the directions), but we also put on all Michael Jackson all the way home (since my birthday shares the same day as the anniversary of his death). His songs are produced/engineered/performed so perfectly! I mean, really. Wow.
Anyway, I got home, hit the pillow and slept for a couple of hours. Then I grabbed my free workout from Sweat Garage (thanks!) and went to work. Another birthday and new experience in the books!