Up, Up and Away

Believe it or not, there's one last "event" from our Sedona, Arizona, trip last November that needs to be shared...before I can lay that week to rest: our hot-air balloon ride (photo album).

It was my first such balloon experience in my life and is one I will never forget. It's hard to describe the feeling of 2 hours in the air at slow speed in the quiet beauty of the desert morning with the redrocks in the distance! But I'm getting ahead of myself....

Before the sun rose, we were picked up at our vacation house and taken out to the desert spot where 5 different balloons were being set up to fly together.

Part of the fun was watching all five balloons get blown up at the same time. Ours was the last (to the left out of the picture, just getting set up).

One by one, all that hot air....and then lift-off!

Then the ride! OMG! For the next two hours we watched the sun rise over the Cathedral Rock formation, one of the 7 vortexes in the Sedona area (see this post).

We even saw the San Francisco Peaks off in the distance, north of Flagstaff (below).

The rest of the trip was just as fun watching the other 4 balloons and taking pictures of where they were, either above or below us the entire ride.

Besides all that, the actual details of flying the balloon itself were so fascinating. I was enamored with all of it, from setup to navigation to takedown.

As I said, I'll never forget it.

And at the end, a celebration! Champagne, strawberries-n-cream, and a certificate of having taken a hot-air balloon ride over the upper Senoran desert! What more could we have asked for from "our beautiful, our beautiful balloon!"