I don't know why w3 should be surprised that it would be 60 degrees on jan.
7. Afterall, this is Missouri and with all the global warming and all. It will
probably be 15 drgrees tuesday.
For whatever reason God decided to send us such a day I thank Him!
At the beginning of the week as i looked at the weather it looked as if it
would be windy saturday...the day that had been rescheduled for a ride that was
auctioned off for the Missouri School of Religion. But my vast experience with
weather watching told me that if wunderground says on monday that it is supposed
to be windy saturday, it may well be nice. As the week progressed the forcast
became increasingly better. The flight was scheduled for afternoon but morning
was going to be better until friday. At that point the forcast proclaimed that
winds were supposed to be from the wsw at 5 decreasing to 3 from the south by 6
pm. So I called Barb (No, not the Balloon Club Barb, the passanger) (Although
they both live in Mexico) and made arrangements to meet at 2:30 at
Schultes...which she had never heard of. Fortunately, her husband works here so
he knew how to get there.
If the winds were from wsw my brothers front yard makes a good launch site
but befpre calling and getting his hopes up i figured i should check the winds.
sure nuf, wunderground and flight service were both wrong. they werre from due
south. Well, if you are ever flying in jc and winds are from the south the best
place to launch if you want to fly over the capitol is Wardsville behind the
elementary school. There are also a lot of fancy houses with huge yards that i
bet you could get permission from. we have landed in a few of them to a welcome
reception.
So off to wardsville we headed.
Crew Chief Cheri was at the wheel and Mark and Ben Struemph were assisting
her. Beth and daughter Andrea were to be the pax and father Dale was there to
cheer them on. He was also ther money behind the ride so he deserved to witness
the event i suppose. He first planned to follow us but as you may recall from
many past such attempts, that rarely works and it took only a small amount of
begging to get him into the burb. I took a shower! really, I did! Maybe he just
didn't like Cheri's lively banter.
The inflation AND LAUNCH WENT OFF WITHOUT A HITCH. (Ooops) The crew worked
together just as if they had last done this a week ago! Ben, 14 years old
and taller than i am has been helping Mark on the crownline this summer a couple
of times so he went solo this time. His dad had obviously coached him well. He
even knew not to bring in the line till i signalled him. Good Job Ben!
We lifted off slowly and barely headed to the nnw but as soon as we got to
50 ft or so we turned more north toward the capitol. that would have been ok but
as we assended to 500 ft or so we turned to the right. just like a morning
flight but not so close to the ground! cool! steerage in the evening!
Beautiful ride! I had mentioned in earlier talks with the pax that winter
was a great time to fly because you could see all the stuff that was usually
hidde by all the leaves. WOW was i right! You could see all the bends in the
windy Moreau river and all the accompaning bluffs surrounding said windy river.
All the houses that would have been partially hidden were exposed for all to
see. There was also an extreme lack of cattle or horses! Do they hibernate?
There was no lack of dogs however. our entire trip was accompanied by a constant
barking sound.
The windy river, instead of being its normal muddy self was the most
pleasant light green color and low enough that all the sandbars made for a very
picturesque ride.
We were now getting close enough to town that an ascent was in order. We
got up to about 1300 feet and leveled off to get a view of beautiful downtown
jc. Infact, from 1300 feet you can see west jc, south jc, east jc and north jc!
They were surprised how long, straight and LARGE the missouri river looked after
floating past the windy Moreau river. I pointed to the south and sw and
showed them the osage and where it runs into the MO just south of the new
prison. We began descending as we approached the river and called the crew to
make sure they were headed across the bridge. They were.
As we crossed the river at about 30 feet a sand dredge patiently sucked
sand from the bottom and sprayed it into the two waiting barges. The river is so
low that it is mostly sandbars now. I be twe could find some dinosaur bones if
we explored a bit! (Someone did that last year up south of st louis). Now, up at
1300 ft we had been moving 20 plus miles and hour but now that we were down
below the river banks we slowed to a crawl. Took us 30 min to get from lift off
to the river and 15 min to get across the water!
The airport is directly across from the capitol and that was our target.
The crew was parked in the parking lot that we usually launch from and with a
little skilled manuvering...I Missed It! Not by much though. We walked it back a
ways but thewind was against that idea so we just took it down in the middle of
the road. The only gut that really needed to get to the airport just drove past
in the ditch. Ain't pickups great!
A short packup, a joyous ceremony and non alcoholic toast later and we were
on our way back to schultes.
Nothing spectacular about this flight other than that it was in january and
beautiful, but, WOW did it feel good to get ahold of that burner and pull on
that vent line! Feel that breeze from the fan, run your hands along the fabric,
see the balloon start to rise slowly as you begin your first burns, see the
smiles and looks of wonder from two happy people that will probably never get to
do this again. It was even good to see the crew hard at work pulling of an
inflation as if they worked together every day and then packing it up like a
grocery bagger in a bagging contest!
And some people wonder why we love ballooning so passionately. It is a rush
that lasts longer than the ride!
Well, Dawn, sorry I didn't get a hold of you sooner. You missed a good one.
I'll call you next time.
Hope you all had a wonderful weekend and will have a great new year! Keep
those resolutions coming!
LOL
Herb