Balloon Rally

Last weekend, we watched the balloon rally at the 2009 F-bo Airfest. I'd never been to the airfest before but I wanted to watch the balloons take off. I don't know where my recent fascination with hot air balloons came from, but I've been thinking a lot about trying it out one day. Matt and I had a very expensive chance to balloon over the Serengeti, but, at $475 per person, we opted out. Now I wish I had. My only other sort of chance was at Downtown Disney this past summer, where they have a moored balloon that floats straight up 400 feet over Disney World. I was ready to drop 20 bucks on that but it was way too windy the day we went. Oh well.

So I settled for a local balloon launch. Actually Matt and I stalled until the last minute. Matt was napping, and I was exhausted. We didn't want to pay the money to get into the airfest, and neither of us really wanted to go to the airport, since it's a place that holds some difficult memories for us. But we rallied (hahaha) and drove out to the industrial park nearby to watch about 6 balloons took off from the F-bo airport. They floated over our car and over the corn fields, and soon Matt and I took off like tornado trackers.

I've been down a lot lately, feeling tired, sad, and stressed. The airport here is a place of great sadness for me, not exactly a place I expected to find some joy, yet chasing the hot air balloons with Matt made me happy. It was a really simple distraction, something we almost skipped out on, but for that day, it made all the difference.