A Balloonist's Treasure Hunt

One of these photos has 21 balloons in it.  Can you find them all?

Once upon a time, long, long ago, we lived in Plano, Texas.  They held a hot air balloon festival.

Back then they would get sponsors to donate things, and the balloonist went on a kind of treasure hunt.

 

One of the treasures of this particular gathering was a set of car keys donated by a local Ford dealership.

The keys had been placed on top of a utility pole, and the balloonist had to navigate his/her balloon down to the pole and capture the keys -- if they could find the particular utility pole involved!

I remember that it was a Saturday morning.  

You know, the kind of Spring morning when everyone wants to sleep in?

As the balloonists began to descend in a quest for the car keys, the neighborhood dogs began to bark. The lower the balloons got the more frantic the barking!  Soon the balloons were so low that you could hear the roar of the propane-powered flames!

It was utter chaos.  I don't know if they ever found the car keys or not, but I think the city council never authorized another balloon festival!

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This was succinct and totally informative!  I just couldn't edit any out!!  So, thank you eBalloon.org, the credit is all yours.

(Did you know that George Washington was present for the first balloon launch in America?)

	eballoon.org How the Balloon works How Balloons are Used - Commercial & Leisure - Corporate - Promotion & Advertising - Sports - Weddings Parts of the Balloon - The Basket - The Burner - The Envelope History The History of Balloons Flights Atlantic Crossings Atlantic Crossings 1970-77 Atlantic Conquered Around the World Flights - First Successful Attempt - First Successful Solo Champagne Flights Typical Flight Directory Ballooning Sites Balloon Rides Clubs & Societies Events/Festivals Manufacturers Museums Products & Services Pictures Alpine Ballooning Balloons Over Cities Baskets Burners Envelopes Flying History Inflating The Envelope Landing Manufacture Miscellaneous Special Shapes Views From The Balloon Weddings Full Text Listing Festivals America Australasia Canada Rest Of Europe UK Contact THE HISTORY OF HOT AIR BALLOONING On the 19th September 1783 Pilatre De Rozier, a scientist, launched the first hot air balloon called 'Aerostat Reveillon'. The passengers were a sheep, a duck and a rooster and the balloon stayed in the air for a grand total of 15 minutes before crashing back to the ground. The first manned attempt came about 2 months later on 21st November, with a balloon made by 2 French brothers, Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier. The balloon was launched from the centre of Paris and flew for a period of 20 minutes. The birth of hot air ballooning!!! Just 2 years later in 1785 a French balloonist, Jean Pierre Blanchard, and his American co pilot, John Jefferies, became the first to fly across the English Channel. In these early days of ballooning, the English Channel was considered the first step to long distance ballooning so this was a large benchmark in ballooning history. Unfortunately, this same year Pilatre de Rozier (the world's first balloonist) was killed in his attempt at crossing the channel. His balloon exploded half an hour after takeoff due to the experimental design of using a hydrogen balloon and hot air balloon tied together. The next major pivotal point in balloon history was on January 7th 1793. Jean Pierre Blanchard became the first to fly a hot air balloon in North America. George Washington was present to see the balloon launch. Now a large jump in time, of over 100 years: In August of 1932 Swiss scientist Auguste Piccard was the first to achieve a manned flight to the Stratosphere. He reached a height of 52,498 feet, setting the new altitude record. Over the next couple of years, altitude records continued to be set and broken every couple of months - the race was on to see who would reach the highest point. In 1935 a new altitude record was set and it remained at this level for the next 20 years. The balloon Explorer 2, a gas helium model reached an altitude of 72,395 feet (13.7 miles)! For the first time in history, it was proven that humans could survive in a pressurized chamber at extremely high altitudes. This flight set a milestone for aviation and helped pave the way for future space travel. The Altitude record was set again in 1960 when Captain Joe Kittinger parachute jumped from a balloon that was at a height of 102,000 feet. The balloon broke the altitude record and Captain Kittinger, the high altitude parachute jump record. He broke the sound barrier with his body! THE ATLANTIC CHALLENGE In 1978, the Double Eagle II became the first balloon to cross the Atlantic, another major benchmark in the History of Ballooning. After many unsuccessful attempts (see our section onAtlantic Crossings for more detailed accounts) this mighty Ocean had finally been cracked. It was a helium filled model, carrying 3 passengers, Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman. They set a new flight duration time at 137 hours. There is a full story breakdownhere in the Atlantic Conquered part of the site. THE PACIFIC CHALLENGE The first Pacific crossing was achieved 3 years later in 1981. The Double Eagle V launched from Japan on November 10th and landed 84 hours later in Mendocino National Forest, California. The 4 pilots set a new distance record at 5,678 miles. 3 years after this, Captain Joe Kittinger flew 3,535 miles on the first solo transatlantic balloon flight, setting yet another record. In 1987 Richard Branson and Per Lindstrand were the first to cross the Atlantic in a hot air balloon, rather than a helium/gas filled balloon. They flew a distance of 2,900 miles in a record breaking time of 33 hours. At the time, the envelope they used was the largest ever flown, at 2.3 million cubic feet of capacity. A year later, Per Lindstand set yet another record, this time for highest solo flight ever recorded in a hot air balloon - 65,000 feet! The great team of Richard Branson and Per Lindstrand paired up again in 1991 and became the first to cross the Pacific in a hot air balloon. They travelled 6,700 miles in 47 hours, from Japan to Canada breaking the world distance record, travelling at speeds of up to 245 mph. 4 years later, Steve Fossett became the first to complete the Transpacific balloon route by himself, travelling from Korea and landing in Canada 4 days later. Finally, in 1999 the first around the world flight was completed by Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones. Leaving from Switzerland and landing in Africa, they smashed all previous distance records, flying for 19 days, 21 hours and 55 minutes. Follow this link for a more detailed description and breakdown of the flight in our Around the World Flights section. It's interesting to see how the development of the the hot air balloon has gone full circle on itself. At the very start, the first balloonists burnt materials onboard the balloon to generate heat to propel the envelope into the air. This theory then became obsolete as gas and helium designs were introduced as it was considered safer and more reliable than flying with an open flame. It is only within the last 50 or so years that hot air balloons have come back into interest.

The Balloons

Some of these balloons arrive in style.

Some are not quite so ostentatious:

The handlers have been given spaces to set up that are appropriate to the size of their balloons.  

"Beagle Maximum" owned by James Cassel and the All American Fitness Bar was, of course, given maximum space.  Scott McClinton's "The American Rocket," sponsored by USA RV and Marine, obviously got a much smaller piece of ground. There has to be a whole lot of forethought and planning to accommodate critters of this size, but remember that there was the carnival to plan for and the skydivers, plus coordinating the bi-planes with the balloon launches.  I think the Lake Havasu planners did a great job!

Once on site, the crew opens those delivery vehicles and pulls out the equipment.  They roll out their balloon and begin to air it up with fans.

That's one heck of a fan!  It looks like a mighty powerful engine on the back of that fan!

Once the balloon is inflated enough to lift those lines out of the way of the flame, they light up the propane.  The more hot air, the more lift.  I wonder how long it took to fill Maximus Beagle with enough hot air to get him on his feet?!

Things get pretty exciting at lift time because the pilot and crew are required to maintain control over their balloons at all times.

This lady started back at a distance equal to the height of the balloon at maximum inflation.  As it went up, she anchored it and was pulled forward pretty fast.  Keeping the "lift lane" clear was pretty important, but most spectators were clueless as to what was going on.  If they had gotten in her way there wouldn't have been a whole lot she could do but run slap-dab over 'em!

Eventually, most were up and ready to lift off:

If you like our blog, you can buy the book forms on Amazon under the “Heritage Travels” titles. There are Kindle versions, also.

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Lake Havasu Balloon Festival and Fair

When we visited Lake Havasu back in the Fall, the shops were handing out these bookmarkers.  We thought how cool it would be to go, but our contract back then ended in December.  Now it had been extended through January so, whopee!, we got to go!

I have now spent three days sorting through the almost 500 photos we took, (Did ya' miss me?) and will now to immortalize a few on the blog.  

Granpa wanted to be there early enough to experience the "Glittering Dawn" display of fantastic Shaped Balloons, so we were up before dawn.  Well, let me say that he was up before dawn.  I fell back to sleep!  (Totally not like me.)  But he woke me with a kiss and a cup of hot tea, so I'd have to say it was the perfect start to an absolutely perfect day!

The drive from Kingman to Lake Havasu is just over an hour and our timing seemed perfect.  As we stepped out of the van we saw three bi-planes coming out of the sunrise headed for the island.  Granpa barely had time to get his camera out! 

They continued to zoom and  swoop over the island until the sky was so filled with balloons that safety sent them home.

Later on there was skydiving with precise landings on the field right beside the Shaped Balloons.  There were over seventy-five balloons scheduled to fly today - and almost twenty of those were Shaped.  

There was a carnival with a Ferris Wheel and Merry-Go-Round and children's roller coaster which was so cool I was wishin' I was a kid again!

 

See the two balloons to the right and left of the Ferris Wheel?  The best is yet to come!

If you like our blog, you can buy the book forms on Amazon under the “Heritage Travels” titles. There are Kindle versions, also.

You can also "subscribe" for free by clicking on the broadcast icon at the top right corner or by bringing out the right hand toolbar and clicking on that icon at the bottom of the list.  It will put that icon on your toolbar at the top of your browser screen.  I try to post every day - it'd be a shame for you to miss one!

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The Books

I'm feeling my way with this book thing.  I needed something to do last winter when we were in North Dakota, so I signed up for a couple of classes through the University of North Dakota OLLI program.  One was a study of the Lewis and Clark expedition and the other a publishing course.

I continued to pursue getting the book published because I thought it would make Granpa proud (it has) and give our kids a printed diary of our travels.  It won't matter to them, but maybe it will mean something to our grandkids and their kids as they "Wow!" over the fact that their Granma and Granpa were born "back in the 1900's!!"  (I know that I'm impressed that my grandfather was born in the 1800's.)

As you know, I wanted the books as a Christmas surprise and worked hard toward that goal.  The OLLI class instructor urged us to keep the book at about 100 pages.  I don't remember why, but that's what I tried to do.

Now that I've had some downtime to think about it, I think that I'd like to be a bit more arbitrary about that. Sometimes we're at a location for only a couple of months and sometimes for over a year.  I try to post something every day, which means a "yearly" book would have something like 365 pages.  That would result in the book costing in the neighborhood of $50 retail.  YIKES!!  That's nuts!  So I don't know that that will be my plan.

Regardless, I have decided to re-do Volume 2.  Now it's at about 200 pages long and goes through the end of the year 2012.  That version should be available through Amazon in the next week or so.  But it's gonna have about a $30 price (U.S. dollars - less for the English pound or the Euro).  Sorry about that...

In the meantime, you get to make a choice between the two versions.  Happy shopping!

If you like our blog, you can buy the book forms on Amazon under the “Heritage Travels” titles. There are Kindle versions, also.

You can also "subscribe" for free by clicking on the broadcast icon at the top right corner or by bringing out the right hand toolbar and clicking on that icon at the bottom of the list.  It will put that icon on your toolbar at the top of your browser screen.  I try to post every day - it'd be a shame for you to miss one!

 On your iPhone, you can create an app by "adding to home screen," bookmark it, or add it to your Reading List, share it on Twitter or Facebook.  Any way you do it, it's free!

Sometimes...

This was posted on Facebook today.  My response was, "My ears are burning..."

I've posted almost 700 articles on this blog.  That's almost daily for over two years.  I don't think I have revealed very many of my trials and tribulations during that time - and there have been many. I'm going through a pretty big one right now.
 
But my preference in life is to count my blessings - and to recount them.  I think you probably have enough troubles of your own without listening to mine.  If I do mention my not-so-good times I try to do it in a humorous way because that helps lessen the pain, and it lets you know you are not alone in the world of misfortune.


There are struggles that I have that even Granpa knows nothing about - things like a momma's sadness that would seem silly to a man.  Daily, sometimes hourly, I have to remind myself to "let go and let God."  Our children are grown and have lives and wives, and Momma is no longer relevant enough to warrant the time and energy it takes to put up with her worries.  I am so proud that our sons stand on their own two feet and take such good care of their wives and families!

But a momma is a momma and will always love her children.  There's an old adage:  A son is a son until he takes a wife; a daughter is a daughter all of her life.  God gave me sons.  Now I count on God to give me strength to fight the battles that nobody knows about.

You, my friends, help me to stay focused on counting those blessings and make it possible to enjoy each day God's way!  Thank you!

Granny Beth's Church

This is the church that Granpa's parents began attending when he was just three years old.  All of Granny Beth's life is wrapped up in this church.  It means the world to her and the handful of people who still attend here.  It's a large sanctuary with classrooms downstairs and a full size gymnasium and fellowship hall next door.  

I wish the world could have seen the joy on the faces of folks when they realized it was John and his family flooding through the doors that morning.  They didn't hesitate two seconds to ask him to lead the singing, as he had filled in for music ministers in the past and they remembered his wonderful voice.  (I even think a few of them didn't even try to sing so that they could hear him!  I know I did!)






After the service everyone went over to the Fellowship Hall for one of the famous North Jackson Fifth Sunday Pot Luck Meals. There may be only a handful of folks attending here, but they have always put on the best food in the county!  Unfortunately, because we had to drive from home, we weren't able to bring anything, so Granpa ran next door and got a bucket of Church's chicken to contribute.  (Forget that store-bought stuff!  I wanted the home-cooking these wonderful homemakers brought!)

After the meal, we went back over to the sanctuary to take a few pictures.  These windows are special to us because our teenage sons helped install them when we were members here after Granpa and I first got married.  That was almost thirty years ago! They still look fantastic.  I wish the whole town could see this place from the inside!  These are double-pane windows and the outside pane is reflective to help control the Texas heat.  Because of that, from the outside, one can't see the beautiful stained-glass colors.  It is so relaxing and refreshing to come in here and settle in for a great sermon!

And here's something one doesn't see in churches much anymore - if at all.  The Church Covenant is a document that a congregation agrees on and puts up at its very beginning to define who and what they are and what they believe.  Even Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Community Church in California published an article in the Baptist Press recommending pastors and congregations adopt church membership covenants.  This document has existed since 1921, and has hung in this building since 1940 when this sanctuary was built.  It is the third Baptist church established in Palestine. 

If you like our blog, you can buy the book forms on Amazon under the “Heritage Travels” titles. There are Kindle versions, also.

You can also "subscribe" for free by clicking on the broadcast icon at the top right corner or by bringing out the right hand toolbar and clicking on that icon at the bottom of the list.  It will put that icon on your toolbar at the top of your browser screen.  I try to post every day - it'd be a shame for you to miss one!

 On your iPhone, you can create an app by "adding to home screen," bookmark it, or add it to your Reading List, share it on Twitter or Facebook.  Any way you do it, it's free!

The Worst Kept Secret - EVER!

I had completed these books of our blog and had them published in November, but I didn't tell our kids about them.  They were to be a Christmas surprise.

Interestingly enough, a few weeks before I actually published, our Dallas son sent me an email and said that I ought to write a book.  I emailed back and asked, "Why would you say that?"  He simply said that I should.  Hmm.  Did he telepathically read my mind from Texas to Arizona?

At the very end of the process I asked our Houston daughter-in-law (who is very computer savvy) to keep the secret, but see if she could help arrange some of the pictures into a better layout.  She did a great job of it!

But then I had to just hold my breath and keep saying to myself, "Don't tell.  Let it be a surprise.  Don't tell."

Once again, the best laid plans of mice and men...

Granpa and I opened our few gifts to each other Christmas morning.  That's when he got his set of "Heritage Travels."  He has never been an excitable kinda guy (and that's a understatement!)  I was not at all surprised by his "uh-huh" comment.  That's Granpa talk for, "I really like this!"

Then he went to spend Christmas Day with his momma and brother's family.  I had secreted a set of the books in their Christmas totes.  I wish I had been there to see Granny Beth's face.  I know she showed a lot more excitement than John had!  She had read them both by the time she came to see us a few days later!  I never heard from his brother and sister-in-law, but John said her sister picked one up and spent the rest of the day reading it!

The following Sunday, our Dallas family and us decided to surprise Granny Beth at her church.  (I think that was the best Christmas gift she could ever have because her church family means so much to her, and to be able surprise her and them was awesome.)  Afterwards, we went to her house - the same house she's lived in since Granpa was three years old!  The true colors are what we told the grandkids: chocolate milk with raspberry shutters!

Granny Beth (you can see her standing in the doorway waving goodbye as we left) had left her set of "Heritage Travels" on the TV cabinet - unbeknownst to me!  Our Dallas daughter-in-law was just looking at the family photos on the cabinet and said, "Oh! What's this?!"  Aw, man!  So much for the secret!

The next day, back at our home, our other daughter-in-law's momma had come to visit.  While I was talking with her, Granpa was having his own conversation with Lori.  He asked what she thought about the "books."  "What books," she asks.  So much for the secret!  (He must have really liked them after all because he wanted to talk with her about them!)  So I went ahead and gave her mother her gift to open right then - a set of "Heritage Travels."

Finally our family gathered around the tree, read the Christmas story from Luke's version in the Bible, and shared gifts.  We had a grand-nephew visiting from Alaska.  He's stationed at Ft. Hood in Texas on his way to Afghanistan.  When he opened his set of  "Heritage Travels," our oldest son was sitting next to him.  Phillip asked, "What are these?"  Lori got my attention - and as it dawned on Larry what he was looking at and his expression transformed.  It was priceless!!  Finally someone was actually surprised!

If you like our blog, you can buy the book forms on Amazon under the “Heritage Travels” titles.  There are Kindle version's, also.

You can also "subscribe" for free by clicking on the broadcast icon at the top right corner or by bringing out the right hand toolbar and clicking on that icon at the bottom of the list.  It will put that icon on your toolbar at the top of your browser screen.  I try to post every day - it'd be a shame for you to miss one!

 On your iPhone, you can create an app by "adding to home screen," bookmark it, or add it to your Reading List, share it on Twitter or Facebook.  Any way you do it, it's free!

Snowfall Memories Repeated

I was working on a new volume of Heritage Travels and came across this post.  I just can't resist sharing it again...

These are some photos of our home in 2010.  

It was just beginning to snow.

Yes, we leave our Christmas lights up as long as possible.  Good thing this year, huh?

This is shot from a high spot behind the house.  I'm so glad the Lord came up with evergreen trees; they make winter time a little less "brown."

Back to the front yard, this is our hitchin' rail for the horses. 

This is some of our stock and our Austrailian Shepherd, Junior.  The horse is a Thoroughbred named July, and the donkey is Mordacai.  He's known as a "Jesus" donkey because looking down on him the coloring shows a dark line of hair across his shoulders and down his back.  Mordacai is the FUNNIEST animal and an absolute sweetheart.

Here we are in the forest (WE call it a forest - our neighbor laughs and says that in Texas it's known as a "stand of trees."  Hey!  We are both born and raised true Texans!  WE call it a forest.)  Anyway, here we are in the forest next to the puddle.  We call it a puddle because it's a pond that doesn't hold water so very well.  Our sons are in the process of digging us a REAL pond on the other side of the land.

This is the swingin' tree that our grandkids, young and old, love to hang out under in the summertime.

John calls this area "the park."  It's one of his favorite places in our front yard because it makes him feel like he's, well, in a park.

The sun is going down, the snow has almost stopped, so John had to give up on his picture taking.  I feel better about Christmas now.  Hope you do to! 

Yes, folks!  It does snow in Texas - just not every year!

Christmas Creations For The Kids

And the process begins!  At the London Bridge in Lake Havasu, Arizona, I discovered these small treasure chests.  When I went to the clerk and said, "I'd like twelve of these," I think she believed I was teasing.  Nope.  'Tis twelve that I need.  (Granpa thought I'd gone a lil' nuts, too!)

Then I began considering what I would fill them with.  First, red felt just to class them up a bit.  Then, of course, $2 bills are required, and some other money - but what other kind of money??  I decided to begin haunting some of the many local pawn shops here in Kingman.  I would go in and ask if they had any "fun" money.  They also looked at me like I was crazy.  I emphasized that I was looking for "fun" money, not "funny" money (which is slang for counterfeit.)  Slowly but surely I amassed enough buffalo-head nickels and Indian-head pennies for one per treasure chest.  Some of them dated back to the 1800's!


As we are in Kingman, the turquoise capital of the world, Granpa and I went to the mine here in Kingman. They sell turquoise in as many shapes and sizes and grades as imaginable.  We dug into a barrel marked $400 per pound and came up with a few pebbles for each treasure chest.

Then, while we were at the Grand Canyon in search of snow, ( http://thetravelerstwo.blogspot.com/2013/12/in-search-of-snow.html ) I picked up some bags of polished agates, quartz crystals, and iron pyrite - better known as fool's gold - because they are pretty and represent the geology of Arizona.

Because a couple of our grandkids are so young they don't appreciate real money, I went to Cracker Barrel and got bags of chocolate "coins" wrapped in gold foil.  That reminded me of the gold dollar coins that came out a few years ago, so I went to some of the banks in town and gathered enough of those for each treasure chest.  While there, one of the clerks suggest some 50-cent pieces.  Ah!  Perfect!  And because these kids are so young, they got the added bonus of tiny race cars and action figures.

My momma gave us these "books" of Lifesaver candies when we were children. Another small tradition to carry on... so there were twelve of these, too.

On the way home, Granpa had to stop at a Russell Stover Candy outlet.  We bought so much candy there that he got a free stuffed animal!  (Boys never grow up!)  And so each of the kids got a stuffed toy along with sample boxes of candy.

None of this, of course, would fit in the treasure chests, but that was okay.  I don't think the kids minded at all!

And for our grandbaby-to-be (Mayberry if it's born in May, and Junebug if it's born in June - not really, but that's what we're callin' it right now!) there was a little stuffed toy and one of my afghans - baby size, of course.

There was a collection of gifts for the parents, too, but not nearly as creative or labor intensive.  (Sorry, guys!)

Overall I think it turned out to be a pretty good Christmas - especially when the older grandkids found out how much the Indian-head pennies were worth!

If you like our blog, you can buy the book forms on Amazon under the “Heritage Travels” titles.

You can also "subscribe" for free by clicking on the broadcast icon at the top right corner or by bringing out the right hand toolbar and clicking on that icon at the bottom of the list.  It will put that icon on your toolbar at the top of your browser screen.  I try to post every day - it'd be a shame for you to miss one!

 On your iPhone, you can create an app by "adding to home screen," bookmark it, or add it to your Reading List, share it on Twitter or Facebook.  Any way you do it, it's free!