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In the summer of 1998, I had planned to give my girlfriend something she's always wanted...a ballon ride. Her birthday was in August, so I called my friends at Sky Adventures here in Oxford, Michigan, to make reservations. It turned out that the date we wanted was pretty much booked, so we had to go a little after her birthday.
When we finally got a date down, there were six of us going in all, and we'd all be in the same balloon. Yes, that would be 6 people and our pilot. You wouldn't think six people could fit in that little basket, but we did.
There is a lot of work involved in getting one of these huge monsters off the ground. Baskets have to be unloaded, propane bottles are strapped in.

	The balloons are unloaded, unfolded and stretched out. Then they have to be hooked up to the baskets (very important, don't ya think?)
	Once all that is done, then they begin filling the balloons with air.
	They use these big fans to inflate the balloon, and then fire the burners to heat it up. After all, you can't just shoot huge flames into a ballon that is flattened out, right?

As you can see here, once the air in the balloon is hot enough, it begins to lift and the baskets are finally uprighted.
Here's the first one sent on it's way. This was one of the smaller balloons, and I think they only had 3 or 4 people on board.
Uh oh...here is our ride getting the blow up treatment. I was starting to get a little nervous.

	It's almost up. Time to put my camera away for a few minutes and get ready to jump in.
	Well, we're in, we're up and on our way. That arm you see in the lower right corner is mine...holding on for dear life! Everyone else was waving goodbye to the D-BAR-A Boy Scout Camp....I was holding on and taking pictures.
	We set off a few miles north-east of Oxford, so exactly where we are, I couldn't tell ya.

You can see quite a lot of things from up here. Here's a shot of someones home under construction.
Looks like balloon number 3 made it up and is joining the fun.
Now this guy was great! He's the father of one of the passengers on board. Every time we'd cross a road, he was right there! We were close enough to the ground that we could yell down to him to find out where we were (or what road he was on).

	We crossed over many fields, and almost all the time, you could see a family of deer. This one is a little fuzzy, but I think you can make it out.
	The countryside offered us a tremendous view.
	If you get to go over a still lake or pond, you'll be able to get a shot of your own reflection.
	There is M-24 north of Oxford looking north.

...and then looking south. Uh oh...out of film. Gonna have to see if Pam will let me scan some of her pics so I can finish this session.   (to be continued)