This morning I got a call from a noizex client. The guy that runs the company had organized a staff field trip type thing, and someone had to cancel so he called me up and invited me to go with them. The field trip in question was a free hot air balloon ride!! It was awsome, we went up in the third largest balloon in Canada. It holds 10 people and is gigantic; 12 stories high gigantic. We lifted off from Bradford, just south of Barrie, and ended up somewhere east of Hallibourton (or a name sort of like that, I dont really recall). The pilot said we went up about 2000 feet at the highest point. From there you could see lake Simcoe and Toronto/CN tower/lake ontario, well Toronto was a bit hazy because it was kind of far but you could still make it out without the binoculars.
The pilot was a 20 year ballooning veteran and was quite good at manoeuvring the giant behemoth of a balloon we were in. He brought us down a foot above some swampy pond and we floated over it for a bit then he took us down lower and basically skipped the basket over the water before lifting us high up again. Once we were back up we saw single engine planes flying by us at the same altitude, they do this "pilots wave" thing where they tilt their wings towards you as they fly by, sort of like a wave. We then dipped back down over farmers fields, and freaked out some cows, you could hear them moooooooooing from pretty high up as they ran down to one corner of their field, apparently they dont like the balloon or the sound it makes when the fire is on. We were at the tree line level for a bit and I reached out and grabbed some leafs from a tree, it was pretty damn cool. After that we flew around for a while longer, passed this giant secluded house out in the middle of nowhere, the pilot said that it belonged to the manager of 80's crap legends Rush. We all laughed. After flying around for a bit longer it was finally time to land. The pilot radioed the chase team that was driving around tracking us from the ground, and asked them to go get clearance from a farmer so we could land on his field. The farmer said it was cool and we touched down on his hay field, we didnt really stop cause the wind picked us up and we started hovering about a half metre above the ground down the field. We left a pretty cool looking path of knocked over hay all the way down to the point where the ground crew caught up with us and anchored the balloon.
Once safely on the ground, you have to "share in the oldest of ballooning traditions, a champagne toast". I toasted and gave someone my cup. The ground crew then drove us all the way back to the starting off point, which turned out to be quite a bit away from where we ended up. We then went to Montanas in New Market, I was waiting for Jcloth to come by, since he lives right down the road from there. Once he arrived we were there for about another 5minutes while I finished my cranberry on the rocks. Then NOTHING of significance happened, I said bye to everyone and we left.
So in my opinion ballooning is BAD ASS, and we need to get a crew together to go back up there, because it is quite the fun little adventure.
ps. Why am I home so late? After Montanas, Jcloth and I went down to another pub to hang out with other people, then we went to the office to annoy Rob during the scheduled maintenance window :)
The pilot was a 20 year ballooning veteran and was quite good at manoeuvring the giant behemoth of a balloon we were in. He brought us down a foot above some swampy pond and we floated over it for a bit then he took us down lower and basically skipped the basket over the water before lifting us high up again. Once we were back up we saw single engine planes flying by us at the same altitude, they do this "pilots wave" thing where they tilt their wings towards you as they fly by, sort of like a wave. We then dipped back down over farmers fields, and freaked out some cows, you could hear them moooooooooing from pretty high up as they ran down to one corner of their field, apparently they dont like the balloon or the sound it makes when the fire is on. We were at the tree line level for a bit and I reached out and grabbed some leafs from a tree, it was pretty damn cool. After that we flew around for a while longer, passed this giant secluded house out in the middle of nowhere, the pilot said that it belonged to the manager of 80's crap legends Rush. We all laughed. After flying around for a bit longer it was finally time to land. The pilot radioed the chase team that was driving around tracking us from the ground, and asked them to go get clearance from a farmer so we could land on his field. The farmer said it was cool and we touched down on his hay field, we didnt really stop cause the wind picked us up and we started hovering about a half metre above the ground down the field. We left a pretty cool looking path of knocked over hay all the way down to the point where the ground crew caught up with us and anchored the balloon.
Once safely on the ground, you have to "share in the oldest of ballooning traditions, a champagne toast". I toasted and gave someone my cup. The ground crew then drove us all the way back to the starting off point, which turned out to be quite a bit away from where we ended up. We then went to Montanas in New Market, I was waiting for Jcloth to come by, since he lives right down the road from there. Once he arrived we were there for about another 5minutes while I finished my cranberry on the rocks. Then NOTHING of significance happened, I said bye to everyone and we left.
So in my opinion ballooning is BAD ASS, and we need to get a crew together to go back up there, because it is quite the fun little adventure.
ps. Why am I home so late? After Montanas, Jcloth and I went down to another pub to hang out with other people, then we went to the office to annoy Rob during the scheduled maintenance window :)