Up, Up, and Away!

This was a conversation with my husband after he came home from an auction of a hunting organization:

Byron: Guess what I bought honey?
Sommer: No! No! We both agreed no hunting trips this year!
Byron: I didn't buy a hunting trip.
Sommer: Well...what did you buy?
Byron: A hot air ballon ride for us to go on!

It is at this point my stomach grows sick and I look at Byron in disbelief. Was he not there with me at the Hot Air Ballon Festival where my mother convince me to get in a tethered ballon and go feet into the air, all the while, I thought I was going to die and that my father was going to allow his only grandchild to fall to his death?

I could feel the basket move and crack beneath my feet! That's not a good feeling! Why in the world would my husband want to put me in that kind of torture, not just a few feet up in the air, but 1,000?

Byron: It'll be fun!
Sommer: Well, Happy Anniversary, then! (I was really thinking this might be the last after I fall out of the dang basket!)

As much as I hate to admit it, riding over the south-west part of the Las Vegas Valley really was great, and so I am required to say it: Byron was right! It was fun! And not at all scary as my first experience. There were some moments however that I turned to Byron in fear. Such as when the balloon pilot was trying to find the right elevation to get us to move and I swear, he was going to land on a house. Then after he landed, his workers were laying out the tarp to let the balloon deflate on, when the wind picked us back up, and we started to drift into the truck parked nearby. It was also fun to watch a Summerlin security guard run and huff and puff up the dirt road to yell at the pilot that he landed on Summerlin property and we were destroying the dirt crust(?) and therefore polluting the enviroment. Guess you can't make everyone happy!

I rediscovered a few things in that 45 minute balloon ride. Las Vegas weather is beautiful! The Las Vegas valley is beautiful! Las Vegas people are beautiful, all running out to wave to us and take pictures of us, as we flew over their homes (the ones we almost crashed into)! If you do not agree with me, if you do not like the valley or the people, would you please leave? You are certainly not seeing the same things I am, and you might be better off somewhere else. Kind of mean, but hey, its how I feel!