For my birthday last year Jordan got me a hot air balloon ride. We scheduled a time, but the weather didn't cooperate and it got cancelled, so we waited until this year to go. We took off from the Noblesville airport, which Jordan and I didn't even know existed. You'll see why in the pictures. We ended up 10-12 miles North in a soybean field in Madison county. So basically, the middle of nowhere! I think we flew at around 600 feet most of the time. It didn't go quite as high as we had thought it would, but it was also nice to be lower so you could see more of what you were flying over. Since we headed North, we pretty much just saw farm land and subdivisions. The trees are changing here, so we got to see some fall colors. I was a little nervous as the whole thing seems a little dangerous to me. It didn't help that the crew and all their "get up" didn't look the most professional, but it turned out just fine. The pilot was an older and very experienced guy. He told us in the thousands of flights he has done, he has never had to use his insurance. That made me feel a little better! The take off was a little rough as the inflate the balloon and then instruct you to basically jump in as fast as you can because they need your weight in the basket. We rocked as we were getting up, but then it was smooth sailing from there. The landing was very smooth although it was interesting that they drag the basket across the ground several times to slow down. We flew just 2 feet above the ground, occasionally touching the ground to slow for several minutes. Then, that was it. We loaded in the van and they drove us back to where we started. I'm glad we did it, but if I were to do it again, I would want to fly over more interesting scenery. Indiana is even more boring in the air than on the ground!



This is the balloon before they inflated it. The airport is just a grass field with cones to mark the runway!

Almost inflated. Once it was inflated all the way it pulled the basket upright and that's when we jumped in.

This is pretty much what we saw...cornfields and subdivisions. Turns out dogs hate balloons and we heard a lot of barking when going over homes and farms. We scared a herd of sheep and it was entertaining to watch them run frantically run into the barn.

You can see the downtown skyline if you look closely.

We flew right over Verizon Wireless Music Center. Too bad there was no concert going on.

Abandoned barn in the trees. You would never know it was there from the ground.

Sunset

Deflating the balloon. This is actually the top opened up. It was nice and warm in there from all the propane.