Hot Air Balloons

Flying in a hot air balloon. In Egypt

Transportation, , ,

Flying in an airplane is always a treat, of course.

But after taking our first hot air balloon ride, the Stuck at the Airport team now knows that this form of transportation is nothing less than magical.

As part of an abbreviated Viking Nile River cruise onboard the just-christened Viking Sobek, we joined hundreds of other very early morning risers at a giant field in Luxor, Egypt.

In the dark, we could just make out big, dumpster-sized boxes tipped on their sides. These turned out to be the big 16-person baskets that would sit beneath the hot air balloons.

The piles of colored fabric strewn around the field turned out to the be the uninflated balloons.

It was calm for a bit as vans pulled up and dropped off cluster after cluster of sleepy tourists.

Then, clearly the “It’s OK to fly” signal arrived from the local airport and hundreds of men began scrambling to light burners that sent flames and hot air up into the balloons to inflate them.

Our group was helped into one of the dozens of balloon baskets and off we went into the sky, floating over not just homes and fields, but also the archeological site known as the Valley of the Kings.

The area was a burial ground for many pharaoh, queens, high priests and other members of Egypt’s nobility from about 1550 to 1069 BC and there are more than 60 mapped tombs in the area.

And sure enough, that’s what we could see as we joined the flock of colorful balloons floating, ascending and descending for more than a hour in the early morning air.

All in all, a pretty great way to travel.

Greetings from: the Great Prosser Balloon Rally

Events, ,

The largest hot air balloon festival in the world – the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta – will take place October 1-9.

But one of the most charming hot air balloon festivals in the world took place this past weekend in Prosser, WA.

This was the 33rd year for the 3-day Great Prosser Balloon Rally and close to 20 balloons took to the skies from Prosser Airport each morning at around 7 am.

For our first-time attendee, things didn’t look too promising when she arrived to find all the hot balloons just lying flat on the ground.

There were families gathered in the field with their kids still in their pajamas. And lots of people with giant cups of coffee. And for a while, nothing seemed to be happening.

But after a set of small test balloons were sent up to make sure the wind conditions were suitable for hot air balloon adventures, the business of filling up the balloons, taking off, and flying over Washington’s lower Yakima Valley was underway.

The sunrise launches are thrilling, but somehow we missed out on seeing the Night Glow when all the hot air balloons are anchored to the ground and are then lit up from inside so that they glow against the night sky.

So we’re already planning on attending next year. See you there.

Courtesy Great Prosser Balloon Rally