Something You May Not Know About Me

 Something you may not know about me:  It's all my grandma's fault.  She used to travel to Albuquerque, NM to the balloon festival they had every year.  She'd go around talking to people and taking pictures.  Then she'd  write up an article about it and sell it to the local newspaper, The Conroe Courier.  I asked her one time if she ever went up in the balloons, and she said no, she didn't want to go in one - she just liked looking at them.  I thought that was crazy - you should go up in one, right?  So that's how a hot air balloon ride was put on my bucket list.

Fast forward a few years.

For Valentine's Day in 2016 my husband of almost 25 years (anniversary is in April) informed me that he bought us a ticket to ride on a hot air balloon.  I was shocked.  I always pictured my ride on the balloon tied to a rope and going straight up, then straight down. I wasn't sure I could handle a balloon RIDE.  It took us until NOVEMBER for me to get the guts to go.

Actually, that was a really hard year because I kept climbing the bath scale praying like a crazy person that I didn't gain too much weight.  There's a weight limit, and I was creeping up the scale (probably from all the stress of worrying about it!).  I even had to have Russ give me a blessing the night before because I was so anxious about it and I didn't want to need anxiety meds, but I was afraid I might give the pilot a hard time because of the anxiety.

We were also concerned because we were from out of town (Blackfoot to Boise - Idaho) and the weather had been bad for balloon rides all week.  So we were hoping and praying we would even get to go.  This was the sunrise we rose up to:

It was a BEAUTIFUL morning, and the time seemed to SOAR.  I enjoyed it so much - it was everything you expect it to be.  The leaves were changing colors under us, and while we were all in coats, the fire from the hot air balloon kept us all snuggie warm.   We went over some parks and a dam, and then we went over a school and a residential area.  Here are two snapshots of the views:

We landed on a golf course.  The pilot let Russ and a few people out of the basket.  There were only three women including myself left in the balloon when a gust of wind picked us up and we shot up 500 feet in the air.  Russ scared me because he was hanging onto the rope and his feet were 10 feet off the ground before he heard me yell at him, "LET GO!"   He dropped to the ground and immediately rose up and said, "I'm okay!"  

I was happy though - I wasn't ready for the ride to be over, it was so lovely and peaceful up there.  So I enjoyed my little excursion all by myself.  :)  Here's a photo of me in the balloon at 500 feet - Russ took it from the ground:

We got to watch them fold everything up and then we had sparkling apple cider with the pilot and his wife drove us back to our car.  As she said, "It's like floating on a cloud."  I agree - it really is.

For Christmas I made the above collage and sent it to Grandma in Texas.  Mom tells me it made her happy that I finally had a hot air balloon ride.  :)

Now it's your turn....  What's something that folks may or may not know about you?