Zach and I wanted to do something special
for our 5th anniversary so when I saw a Groupon deal for a balloon
ride, I thought, perfect! What
could be more beautiful than a balloon ride over English countryside?
We scheduled the balloon ride for Monday,
May 28 in the evening in the Lake District. We were to call the weather line in the afternoon to make
sure it wasn’t cancelled. Since
the weather was so gorgeous, we decided to make a day of it and drove out to
the area to have a picnic lunch and to stroll through Windermere and enjoy the
day.
We were good to go; weather line told us to
go on and meet outside of a nearby hotel at 6:30pm. As soon as we parked in the specified lot, we were
approached by an old man who shared an uncanny resemblance to my Grampy
Arey. Oh boy, I thought, this
should be interesting. After all
12 balloon-riders were accounted for, we waited for the Land Rover carting the
balloon to come get us and pick us up.
Only the old man, Matthew, and the other guy, Graham, didn’t realize
that they couldn’t fit all 14 of us into the Land Rover, so some had to ride
with Matthew. After probably about
a half hour we finally arrived at another pub, so Graham parked, mumbled
something, and jumped out of the car.
When 15 minutes had passed with no sign of Graham we all started
wondering out loud…”Maybe he nipped into the pub to get some fish and chips and
a pint?”
He finally emerged, jumped back into the
car without a word, and started maneuvering the Land Rover down this path into a field. Since we couldn't all fit into the Land Rover, some had to jump on the cart carrying the balloon basket and hold on
tight. We bumbled for a good 15-20
minutes into this cow field with probably 15 gates that poor Matthew had to
jump out and open and close each time, while the bumbling idiots tried to find
the departure field. They finally
went so far into the field, we came to another street. Hmm… must’ve missed it… so they called
back to their bosses who told them that the field was there, that it was right
at the beginning by the cows… so we bumbled and bumped our way in the Land
Rover another 20 minutes to get back to the starting point of the field, this
time noticing the cow gate that clearly read, “WARNING: BULL IN FIELD.” Umm, say what? We’re going to set up a balloon in a
field with a bull?? Graham
confidently stated that there were no bulls in the field, although there was one cow with just a single udder and a pretty impressive bowling ball bag behind, so you tell me.
mooooove!
At this point it was almost 8pm. Here we were, thinking, ok, we’ll fly
on the balloon at 6:30, maybe land at 7:30, and then stop in a pub for dinner
by 8. Well, that clearly was not
going to happen. They
started setting up and there was a little wind around, which is not good for
ballooning, so I started feeling a little anxious. They had to enlist the help of about half the people to set
up the balloon, which was kind of ridiculous because those poor people had no
idea what they were doing. Maybe
the company should have sent more people out to set the damn thing up? Poor Zach was trying to help with the
balloon when they were filling the balloon with air, and he ended up running
through loads of stinging nettle, which he said still stung his legs when he
got up the next morning! All of us
were complaining and making jokes at this point. One old lady quietly joked that she wondered if we would end
up on Candid Camera. After what
seemed like forever, they finally got the balloon going and hooked up to the
basket. There were 12 of us, so
that meant 3 people per basket.
Zach and I were the last ones on, so we weren’t in the same basket, but
close enough. I was sat with a
couple also celebrating their anniversary who were hilarious and were cracking
jokes most of the time. I was
really nervous sitting in there waiting for the balloon to take off, hoping
this Graham guy was better at flying a balloon than he was in finding the
take-off field.
check out that fire!
is that grampy Arey? haha
Zach in the background trying to hold ground while holding onto the balloon ropes!
Before I knew it, we were off the
ground! The feeling was surreal as
I watched the cows in the field getting smaller and smaller. Luckily I don’t have a fear of heights,
and was enjoying looking all around and even right below us. (My mom’s probably having a heart
attack reading this!) Once we were
up high enough, the views were stunning.
We could see the mountains of the Lake District and Lake Windermere, the
largest lake. Even though it was
probably around 9pm the sun was still out and it was gorgeous. It was really peaceful up there; the
ride was really smooth, and when the flames were turned off it was really
quiet. Our highest altitude was
3,500 feet! We couldn’t believe
that we were actually up that high!
We attracted a lot of onlookers as we passed over a town. Mostly we just passed fields of
frightened sheep, running away from the big floating basket in the sky. We could even see the Irish Sea!
still slightly nervous...can you tell?
there we are!
wow! 3500 feet!
coming over a little village - they were all waving
the sheep were not so happy...they were trying to run away
Lake Windermere
the trees look like broccoli
the Irish Sea!
Lake Windermere again
the sun was so bright that Zach looked orange
the bumbling idiots' high tech way of taking a photo of all of us
ah, there's the moon
the sun just about down - probably almost 10pm
We were right on track to land in a field
nearby to where we parked our cars.
We assumed the landing position (seated) and started floating down,
down, down. Then, bump, bump,
bump, we landed in the field… then floated up a few feet again, then bump,
bump, bump, we hit ground again.
The guy next to me joked to his wife, “This is kind of like your
driving!”
two curious horses watched our whole landing ordeal
When the basket finally
stopped moving, we thought we were home free, but we had to wait until it was
safe to get out, meaning they had to get the balloon under control, which it
was not. Before we knew it the
basket was tilting, tilting, then CRASH!
The basket landed on its side with all of us still sitting in it! After a few seconds, and realizing the
basket was not going to be lifted back to its upright position, we all took in
the situation… we were all sitting in our seats, laying parallel to the ground,
mostly laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. I felt bad because there were a few
older couples with us! After
sitting there for a few minutes, I took a few pictures to remember this and
laugh about it later, and then Graham told us we were all going to have to
crawl out! Say what? We were squished in there like sardines
facing the sky – how was that going to work? The row under us got out first, and I decided I should try
to get out of my compartment first, by holding onto the basket part above me
and doing a sort of pull up move to get out. TA DAAAH! On
solid ground at last!
We still
weren’t done when everyone got out because we had to wait for the bumbling
idiots to pack up the basket and balloon, which took another half hour. Graham was standing in the field like
an idiot texting on his phone while Matthew and some of the other people packed up the
balloon (customers, mind you, who shouldn't have had to do anything!) When the balloon was all packed up,
Graham came over to them and was like, Oh do you need any help? It was almost 10:30pm by the time we
found our way back to the parking lot to enjoy our glass of champagne. We were so hungry but nothing was open,
but luckily we had some leftover fruit salad and some biscuits to tide us over
till we got home, which wasn’t until almost 12:30am!! Ridiculous! We
had some food (I had beans on toast - am I becoming British?) and crashed into bed.
It was a crazy experience but it was worth
it. The views were incredible and
I got lots of great photos, and how many people can say they’ve been in a hot
air balloon?
