Up in the air

And now, here's the actual balloon flight. We were given a meet-up time of 18.00 (6pm) at a football (soccer) field south of Saumur. This seems to have changed to 19.00, but we and another couple missed the message, so we waited a long while before more people showed up. Eventually 16 people arrived. With so many people, both of us expected there to be multiple balloons. Instead, one giant economy-sized basket arrived with two small vans to pick us all up. You can get an idea of the size of the basket based on the car that's pulling it. The red bits on top are the covers for three propane burners; the red cube on the back is the stuff pack for the balloon itself.

Aiming to land near to the lot where we left the cars, the basketeers checked the wind direction, and we went to a site north of the Loire. Here the balloon is being unloaded from its stuff bag.

The trailer was then brought around so the basket could be unloaded near the bottom of the balloon.

The basket has a central compartment across its "waist" for the pilot and the bottles of propane. On each side of this are two lengthwise compartments that hold four people. When coming in for the landing we all crouched shoulder to shoulder and held onto the handy loops.

The basket was tipped onto its side attached to the balloon ...

and big fans blew air into the balloon to get it expanded.

The people standing on the left give you an idea how big the balloon is.

Almost ready to go upright. That's the bottom of the basket in front of the car.

The propane burners are lit and the balloon is going upright now.

Once the balloon is upright, we all clambered into our designated compartments. With no ladder or stairs, this was a bit of a challenge for those of us with older joints. That's the pilot with his arms up.

Looking up into the balloon with a burner going. The burners are quite noisy and give a blast of heat whenever they're lit.

Off we go!

Starting to rise. People in their yards and on the roads below waved and we waved back. Dogs barked at the strange thing in the sky (we didn't bark back).

This is Saumer, arriving from the north. You can see the chateau just above and left of the center of this picture. Our hotel was along the water front there. We waved at Pogo, but don't think he saw us.

Here's the chateau from above.

Drifting along in the sky is very nice. It's very peaceful until the burners go on. The air wasn't as cool as we expected and Kaye felt a bit overdressed with a sweater on, especially when we were roasted by the burners. Here she is squinting into the setting sun.

And here's Ed leaning back over the edge.

We spent what seemed to be a long time looking for a field that was appropriate for landing. Skimming the treetops was exciting. It would like we were going to catch on the trees, but then we'd sail over. Finally just the right spot was found. All the passengers got into the brace position and the pilot set us down without much bumping around. The chase car arrived almost immediately after.

We in the meeting of three fields, separated by dirt roads in a T shape. Across the top of the T was a soy field (we think) where we actually landed. To the left was a wheat or barley field (can't tell them apart, sorry); to the right was corn. The chase car dragged the basket, followed by the balloon, down the long leg of the T till everything was straight. As the sun set, the mosquitos (moustiques) came out in force while we packed up the balloon and got everything stowed away. Then we had a celebratory cup of ... cider! (Ed has been ballooning before in the US, where the traditional drink for your maiden flight seems to be champagne. In France you get cider.)

We both thought that we had drifted far to the east, but when we finally got back in the vans, it was only a five-minute drive back our cars. Well done, to the team for choosing the take-off spot and to the pilot for getting us down with a minimum of thrills at the end.

We enjoyed the experience of sailing along silently (some of the time) in the sky. It was fun picking out places we'd visited in the last days. Even the Fontevraud Abbey could be picked out in the distance. But we both thought the ultralight flights we took two years ago were more exciting.