Up, Up and Away

As my last post anticipated, a week or so ago my son and his grandpa went for a hot air balloon ride.  On Friday they were instructed to meet at 7:00 a.m. at site “W”, a church in West Salem.  (The church has a sign that says “Drive-In Church”.  I’m still trying to figure out how that works…)  The balloon van arrived and the crew started unpacking.  The whole process of unpacking and blowing up the balloon took about a half hour – I’m always impressed when people accomplish such big things in so little time!

 

The whole balloon is in this bag!

 

Cold air is blown into the balloon with a fan:

 

 

The burner is fired up and hot air is blown in:

Balloon is up and they’re ready to go!

 

Up…

 

Up…

 

and Awaa…

 

…yyyyyyy!

 

I had planned to spend the morning checking out some estate sales, or rushing home to take photos if the balloon was going to come our way.  But, the winds were “light and variable” and the balloon floated off toward downtown.  I was snapping away when one of the crew asked if I wanted to come with them in the chase van. Yes!

When they call it a “chase” vehicle, they aren’t exaggerating.   There’s a sign on the back of the van that says “Warning: Frequent Stops and Indecisions!”  While we zoomed and stopped and looked and went around the block and zoomed the other way, Dad and Ben were floating over the river looking down at the Oregon State Capitol building with the Gold Pioneer on top, and all of downtown Salem; and listening to the balloon pilot, Jim Desch, guide them through their aerial tour.  Jim, who owns Balloon Flying Service of Oregon, has been flying since 1989 and knows every possible landing spot in the area.  They estimated that this spot would work so Cecil pulled the van in here and stopped:

But…oops!  The winds changed direction and we had to jump in the van and take off to the east, where there was a nice big field next to the city shops.

Coming in:

 

It cleared the wires effortlessly (although from the ground it looked like they were coming in right on top of them!)

 

 

A perfect landing!

 

Time to pack up…

 

 

At the top of the balloon – it’s 200°F on this end!

 

They wrap straps around the balloon and then pack it into the bag…

 

 

They have to squish it so it will fit in the van!

 

When everything was packed up we all rode in the van back to the launch site, and took our cars to Wallace Marine Park in West Salem for the traditional champagne or sparkling cider breakfast.  Jim graciously invited me to join in, (but only those who flew in the balloon were allowed to have champagne)!

Setting up for breakfast.

 

Ben wanted to go throw a rock in the river (ka-bloop!)…

 

Before breakfast, Jim introduced the champagne toast with a history of ballooning…

 

…and presented Dad and Ben with framed Certificates of Ascension! (They also got to keep the champagne cups with the little balloons on them!)

 

Breakfast included croissants with strawberry cream cheese or chive cream cheese, crackers and a cheese spread, chocolates, and brownies. For beverages we could choose hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles or coffee. Everything was delicious, and I was enjoying the meal and the conversation (mostly about Jim’s former career – monument making) so much I completely forgot to take any photos of the food!

I JUST realized that the whole time Ben and Dad were on their balloon ride and I was in the chase van, I didn’t once think of the song “Up, Up and Away” until just now when I was trying to invent a title for this post. Can you believe it?

(Sorry about the weird fonts in this post.  I can’t figure out what happened, and it won’t let me edit the font sizes!)

 

They Found the Kite Man!!

Two and a half years ago I wrote a post about a local Pacific Power public service television commercial I remember seeing as a child (read the post “Kite Man” here for reference). Today, I am incredibly pleased to announce that the video, after being lost for years, is finally on the internet!  Thanks, Jason Rouse, and thanks to Rob for letting us know where to find it!  Here it is:

The Kite Man

Over the last couple of years I’ve realized that I’m not the only one who wanted to see this again and show it to the next generation.  It is one of the most read posts on my blog, and there are numerous Facebook pages about the subject, including this one: Search For the Kite Man. 

How many of you hear the word “frogs” and still automatically respond “I like frogs.”?

Monday Memories

I thought I’d start a “Monday Memories” series to put down some sort of random memories that pop up in my brain here and there.  I’d love to hear some of yours, too!

I heard the name “Heidi” yesterday and it reminded me of a girl who took care of my sister and me during the summer one year when our mom had gone back to work to sell real estate.  (This was around 1980 or 1981, when the real estate market had unfortunately bottomed out.)

Heidi was 17 years old and she was a wonderful babysitter.   She was very pretty and had an old pickup to drive us places, which we thought was extremely cool.

The clearest memory I have of Heidi is that she had a purse that looked like a rolled up magazine.  It was a plastic clutch style to hold under your arm, and you couldn’t tell it was a purse.  I had never seen one before and she had gotten it on a trip somewhere, so I couldn’t get one.  But, I just found some beautiful models and more info about them online at StyleWithAnna!   This site just gave one away, but I missed it. :’-(   You can buy them at Clutch For Cures, and I also found a vintage model on eBay.  I’ll have to start saving immediately to get one!