Flight with Caitlynn and Marci

At the Y's auction last month, my friends David and June bought the balloon ride we donated. I thought June was going to fly with me, but when the weather looked good for a Saturday flight, and I e-mailed David to set it up, he said I'd be flying their daughters, Marci and Caitlynn. I've met the girls before, and Caitlynn flew with me on a tether last summer, so I was really looking forward to a flight with them.

We recruited our friend Alex to help crew, and met at 6:00 in Gravel Ridge. After a short drive north to Bayou Meto School, we assembled the balloon, loaded the passengers, and up we went.

It took Caitlynn a few minutes to get used to the noise of the burner, but Marci seemed to like it (she's a big Harley Davidson fan, so noise is her friend!) and soon they were having a great time!

I talked to the controller at Little Rock Air Force Base to let him know we were operating in their airspace (never saw anything else in the sky during our flight) and on we flew. It's always fun flying over sparsely populated areas. This was a pretty place to fly, with lots of ridges, trees, and open spaces.

The winds on the surface were really calm, but up just a hundred feet or so, they picked up quickly. The surface winds were expected to say calm, so I was pretty sure we'd have a very gentle landing, but I knew we could fly toward Cabot, and we could fly over town if we weren't able to land before we got to the city.

After about 40 minutes in flight, we saw a nice field, right next to the Welcome to Cabot sign. We flew toward it, and dropped into the middle of the field. Soon, the chase crew was there. Alex dragged the balloon to the road, and we deflated dry on the pavement.

The only disappointment of the morning was when we discovered the Fried Pie Shoppe in Jacksonville on the way home had switched to its Summer hours and wouldn't open until 10:00. Oh well, donuts would have to do!