Finally it can be told. Or more to the point, finally I have the time (and bandwidth) to tell it.

Wednesday of last week, I went out to the Sarpy County Fairgrounds in Springfield, Nebraska with elusivem and garyomaha. Our goal was to fly elusivem's hot air balloon with me as passenger.


elusivem his own self.


garyomaha likewise.

We were met there by elusivem's father and brother for ground crew, and joined shortly thereafter by msrotundo, Mrs. msrotundo, TH and Dr. C. As it happens, this is pretty much the usual Omaha Beach Party crowd. We were just meeting in a field in small town Nebraska instead of at Zio's Pizzeria in town.


elusivem's brother.


msrotundo


Mrs. msrotundo


TH.


Dr. C.

Another balloon was already present, being set up by the pilot, Steve Lacroix of Scenic Wind Balloon Tours, his co-pilot, and a ground crewman who happens to be one of the most experienced balloon pilots in the US — Rich Jaworski of Euphoria Balloons, who holds world endurance ballooning records.



Our balloon's basket was dragged bodily from the trailer, and set-up commenced.









The balloon was itself set up.









But we never inflated, due to a rising wind. The neighbors gave up, then we did too.





Eventually, everyone went off for Mexican food.



I'll be back in Omaha the week of 5/23. We'll see what happens then with the weather and the sky. Even though we never got off the ground last week, it was a lot of fun.

Photos © 2011, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.