A lucky day of Crewing on a Hot Air Balloon Team

After our wonderful experience of getting our first-ever hot air balloon ride, we were back at the launch field for a second early morning. We were up at 4:45 a.m., and arrived at the college soccer field by 5:30. We saw the sun rise two mornings in a row--something that hasn't happened in a very long time!

We were up this early to help Bob and Kris launch their hot air balloon at the Riverton Balloon Rendezvous. We enjoyed our crewing experience, so we wanted to help again. It was fun being on the field and watching the bright colored balloons come to life.

With one day of hot air ballooning on our resume, we hoped that we would be more helpful now that we had experience. We knew that the first steps were putting the pieces of the basket together, unloading the envelope in a straight line, and attaching it to the basket.

We were both doing different jobs than we did the morning before, so our resume was growing. One of Denisa's jobs was taking pictures of the balloons that were going up around us. It was a beautiful morning!

Uh-oh! Our crew chief, Kris, was distracted. A man carrying a baby just walked into our area. She and Bob have hosted over 50 foster children in their home, and she has a soft place in her heart for babies.

The baby was carried away, and Kris returned to keep us all busy as they started the fan to inflate the envelope. You can see that the top of the balloon laying on the ground was not yet sealed. That turned out to be Denisa and Kris's next job. No pictures of the process because we were busy velcro-ing it in place so the balloon would fully inflate.

When we got the top of the envelope in place, the balloon continued filling. Denisa and Kris pulled out new sections of the envelope to help it inflate. Mark's new job this morning was holding tight to the rope attached to the top of the balloon.

He had a nice view of the rest of the field of balloons, but he didn't dare take his phone out of his pocket to take a picture. His job required two hands.

That rope was called a crown line, because it was attached to the crown of the envelope. Zippy was getting bigger, as were the other balloons around us.

They started heating the air inside the balloon, and it rose to its standing position. That pulled Mark and his rope back towards the basket, where he was helping to hold it to the ground.

The balloon sponsors didn't show up again this day, so two members from yesterday's chase team got their first balloon ride. Denisa took pictures of the local math teacher and her daughter as they left the ground. We waved from the ground as they were going up . . .

and up . . .

and up!

It was time for us to change from set-up crew to chase crew. We had all the gear loaded into the pickup, and our fearless crew leader turned into a balloon chaser.

There were lots of balloons in the air over Riverton. But we had to stay focused to where our balloon was heading.

The prevailing winds were in the opposite direction from the day before. So Kris was driving into uncharted parts of Riverton this day.

We were lucky to have a local citizen riding with us, who knew what roads were dead ends and how to move about the area. We could see that Zippy was getting lower in the sky, so we started working our way in that direction. We knew from riding in the balloon that Bob was looking for an open spot without fences and without electrical lines.

It looked like a couple of balloons were looking for landing spots. The Wind River was very near, and we learned that bodies of water will affect the wind currents. We also knew from our navigator that there were few bridges over the Wind River, and if Bob crossed it we would have to drive many miles to get to a bridge to pick him up. We also noticed some over-sized mosquitoes in the air around the balloons. No, those were ultra-light airplanes enjoying the early windless morning to spend some time among the hot air balloons.

Once again, Bob made a perfect landing. He stayed on this side of the river, right off the road, and not inside that fenced area. Good work! We laid the balloon down in a driveway after we asked for permission to do so.

Yesterday we didn't get any pictures of the process of milking the air out of the balloon. So today Denisa took some shots. Mark's description of the process was "you pick it up and hug it" and then "you choke it like it was a big old dragon."

As the fabric was squeezed together, bands were velcroed in place every three feet or so.

Bob appreciated having someone behind him muscling that fabric together and taking some of the weight off his back.

We had no pictures of the process of getting that balloon packed into its storage container because it took all of us together to achieve that. Imagine stuffing all the toothpaste back into the tube, and you can get a visual. They had a nice lift system that raised the bulky pieces back into the pickup. Because we had a big crew today, Bob and Mark rode in the back of the pickup on top of all the balloon pieces for the return trip into town. We said a fond farewell to Bob and Kris, and they gave us their festival schedule because we all hope to crew together again some time. We started early this morning, but that meant that we also finished early. We were finished in time to head to church on this Sunday morning.

It was our last day at our camping spot at Riverwind Casino. We made trips inside the casino because they had free fountains drinks, as well as several cafes. When we paid for our camping spot, we got free vouchers at the casino restaurants and $5 each for free play at the casino. On our last night there, Denisa decided to put $5 in her favorite slot game. She is a big spender, with her 30-cent bets! She was about to quit when she won 15 free spins . . . and then won 15 more . . . and then 15 more free spins. During these free spins she was earning tokens that made more icons on the wheel into wildcards. As we sat and watched the 45 free spins, her winning totals were rising higher than a hot air balloon. At the end of the free spins her $5 total was over $125! She had never seen anything like that!

We took a picture of the beautiful sunset over our little campground in Riverton. It's not often that we see both the sunrise and the sunset on these long summer days. We've certainly been lucky this weekend in more ways than one!