A couple of weekends ago, I went to visit my friend,
Kristina, in Ohio. Kristina and I were
besties way back in high school, but haven't lived in the same state since
then. It's really quite a remarkable
feat that we are still friends, but I suppose there's a certain level of
bonding that happens when you live together during your most awkward of years
(aka high school). 
So, Kristina was very devoted to making sure we did things
that I could add to this blog, which led to 4 jam-packed days. Not everything
we did was new – like the escape room (though in this one, we were literally
handcuffed together and dressed in orange jumpsuits) and the whole belting the
entire Wicked soundtrack as off-key as we could manage (sorry to everyone else
in that car).
And while I will someday (hopefully) get around to blogging
about our other adventures, the first epic experience we did in Cleveland was
hot air ballooning! This has been on my
bucket list for a long time, and while it was very expensive, I think we got a
relatively good deal on it.
We ended up meeting the people running the show at a high
school and then hopped in their car to go find an open field to take off
in. When we got to the open field, they
then started to put it together with the aid of a couple of the guys there with
us for the ride. They had the balloon
bundled up inside the back of a truck and so they started pulling it out and it
just kept going and going and going. I
knew the balloon had to be big but daaang.
It was twice as long as I had expected it to be.
They connected it to the basket which was turned on its side
and then started filling the balloon up with air. This took a little while and finally they had
it inflated and facing the right direction, at which point we basically just jumped
in the basket. The hot air is what then
makes the balloon actually rise, so our pilot (I'm not sure what else to call
him) started lighting the flame above us and we took off very smoothly. I was surprised how quickly we rose and
traveled away from where we had started. In a matter of seconds, the rest of
the balloon crew were tiny little ants.
Overall, the balloon ride was very peaceful and
relaxing. However, the flame did get
rather annoying by the end of it. It's not really that far above your head and
so when the flame is lit, it's REALLY hot. A couple of times I happened to be
looking up when it was lit and my eyes would be in instant pain! But even if
you're looking down, your scalp starts to feel like it's on fire if the flame
is on long enough. It's never really lit
for more than a few seconds at a time so it's bearable but still…I can't say a
burning sensation is ever a pleasant feeling.
Additionally, the flame is pretty loud. The combination of the sporadic
heat and noise was giving me a headache by the end of the ride.
Being up in the balloon was definitely a unique experience.
For me at least, it didn't invoke any kind of fear. You know how sometimes when you're looking
over the edge of a cliff, you get this weird tingly feeling shooting through
your body that's like "Alert! Alert! You can die!" (or maybe that's just me), but in any case, I
never got that. There was absolutely
nothing scary about being in the sky inside a basket. Occasionally when I would
stare down at the ground for a long time, I would start to feel a little dizzy
from the viewpoint of looking straight down but that was really it. The weather was absolutely perfect though,
and we saw some really beautiful views.
It was cool seeing our reflection in lakes and our shadow across trees.
We also saw some wildlife and being up so high, we could hear things below
really well. There were a few times
where we heard dogs barking or children yelling but I couldn't see them.
We ended up landing in a muddy field with a TON of bugs
which was super gross. The landing was
kind of cool though. We touched down and then bounced up a few feet and came
down again and repeated a couple of times until we finally came to a complete
stop.
After everything was packed up (bugs included), we then had
drinks where we toasted to life (don't worry mom, I just had sparkling cider).
Apparently this is a tradition that everyone does after hot air balloon
rides. Long story short, the first ever
guys to try out a hot air balloon ride were mistaken for aliens when they crash
landed in some farmer's field. So for
the second time, they took up bottles of champagne with them so that when they
came down, they could prove they were from this world. I love how alcohol is apparently the symbol of
Earth.
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