Fly Me To The Moon

I promise this is not turning into a flying blog but we went ballooning over the Barossa valley the other day thanks to our friend Tom who 'smuggled' us into the basket. He's really a wine maker in the Barossa but he's recently started working for a balloon flying company on the side. For now he's ground crew, meaning he helps set up the balloon, then follows it in the truck to wherever it lands and packs everything up again. He wants to get his pilot license in the future but as with everything else, you have to start at the bottom. (In this case, literally and figuratively.)

The lucky accident that propelled us into the balloon that morning had to do with the weather. It was going to be a very warm day and Mike, the pilot of Barossa Valley Ballooning,  wanted to take out the big balloon and basket since that works better in warmer weather. But they only had four people signed up for a flight and that wasn't quite heavy enough for the big balloon. So Tom mentioned that he had some friends staying over who would surely be happy to come and work as ballast and yada yada yada, hello free balloon ride! Besides the 4:30am wake up, it was a spectacular day.