Today she flew along side her builder's first balloon, MOJOs Reverse Gravity Machine aka YTIVARG!
For me, I got to fly a person who has never flown before and so did Morghan. Along with their parents who had flown in a ride balloon years ago, they got to enjoy a personal flight bouncing about the stretch of Unser Blvd between Southern and Westside and even past Cherry road up North.
I was able to get a few shots in and this was my favorite of them all. Below you can see the full shot.
Just the depth of field on this shot made it great. Its like just there is the edge of the world and Mo is cruising right for it.
I decided to have a shorter flight and landed next to a Five Guys restaurant... maybe I was hungry. I know I had a crummy direction that I could not get changed regardless of the height I was ( without getting silly and going up to 10,000 feet ) so we had a fun little float over a school, some houses and a couple of trees and landed nicely next to a dirt road.
Crew roared up right after and taxied us down to a bit of road going the way we wanted ( and the envelope would want to go due to wind ) to lay down. We did and packed her away while the balloon that took off next to us landed next to us and proceeded to pack up too. That was fun.
After that, we decided to see where Mo had gotten off to as one of Mo's rules is if he has propane he can find a landing spot near when its all gone.... yeah... in an arroyo North a bunch of blocks. Getting to him was a fun run down some very unimproved roads and then into a very sandy arroyo. The Ram enjoyed everything but dragging the trailer through the soft sand. She never bogged down but she did swish about a bit.
They were pretty much packed up by the time we arrived and so we watched and laughed then drove back to real tarmac roads.... then back to the field to tell the story of hot air ballooning and give out pins.
Then it started to snow.... so my rule is.. snow... go home and have coffee or cocoa... so we did.
I was only able to take a few shots ( really ) with the Sony RX10V4. They came out nicely even with the funky light... A little tweak to the curve and they were light enough.
Here are all I took.
Seth lifts out. Seth got a lot of cover from me today as he was or I was or we were each other's shadows.
Another balloon heads out. I think they found the very slow West but it was too slow for my hyperactiveness. A Top Gun Target is laid out to the left.
The full version of the banner picture. Mojo rides the waves to the edge of the world.
A close crop ( with the Sony RX10V4 I can crop all day without losing resolution ( It seems )) of Mo and Unser Blvd. There is a line out there that you don't want to go past unless you have LOTS of fuel.
Seth drops out and finds a bit of South or that is what it looked like to me.. but then he came back up and was overhead.
WORLD BALLOON cruises into the area. Bold Bright and some of the best pilots flying these ride balloons.
A slight crop on the second shot I took of them coming North. A fun ride for the 10 or 12 passengers.
Going high to look for some steerage... nope.. none! ... Left this size to show the edge of my basket and the arroyo and the houses with no paved roads and the soft browns of it all. Running / biking track directly below.
Dropping down at about 700 feet per minute which for In Czech is trying as she likes to stay up... but the Flytec 6040s were giving me a drop alarm as they should.
We leveled out about 100 feet up and dropped down to do a simulated landing on the bike / running path before heading back up to play with Seth. Mo down low chasing rabbits..
Shadows... Never close enough to touch but nice enough to talk if we wanted.
Mo does some landing preps next one of the Top Gun Targets.
Seth and his passengers trying to go for the target I was blocking them from... LOL.
Dropping back down into a little faster wind....
After that Mo headed North... we landed.. Seth came in behind and did a touch and go and then another balloon landed. A load of fun but I had to put the camera down to control the minute burns and vents to get exactly where I wanted to be...and I did .. which makes me very happy.
Nothing like hitting a landing spot picked out over a thousand or so feet away and in a different wind level.
Other than that we enjoyed a bit of a quiet day sleeping off the morning.
What I was listening to while blogging this.
One of my favorite songs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRSNy8DcIDk&list=RD65n3Wxg0c4Q&start_radio=1
During the week and even now I am still watching the narrow boat vlogs on youtube. Some sad shots of trash and hypodermic needles were strewn all over the edges of the canals... very sad.
I watched a lot on the railroad system in England and the changes over the years and that is a nightmare of oddness. Open stations.. close stations.. move them a block here.. or a block there just to close them again... Seriously! Stop already! What a waste of material, energy and scrubbing the beautiful countryside on and off with buildings.. ugh! So many train track routes that are disused, equipment tossed aside to be overgrown... one thing I do have to say is the English countryside will take back over in a hot second and I like that. Go nature!
Out here in the desert, it takes a bit longer... Mostly with the trash dumped out in the desert the sun and dry kills it first.. and if it doesn't then the rabbits or coyote's take it back to their dens for that rustic furniture look. It's sad that we have dumps all over the city that are super cheap to use but lazy people think it's okay to drop that Barco-lounger just anywhere.
Go sun! Go Weather! Go nature!
So much fun running off the rails or thought.
Enjoy your week! Next weekend I think we are resting and the flying the weekend after that... or something. I want to get out and get more photographs of things other than balloons...
