Last year Dan presented me with a gift certificate for a hot air balloon ride for my August birthday!  It seemed like a wonderful idea at the time, but it is the following July, and we have yet to set eyes or feet on a balloon.  We had a couple different times scheduled in the fall (prime color watching season): but the weather didn’t cooperate the first time, and my work schedule didn’t cooperate on the second date; and then we ran out of good weather, forcing us to wait until spring.

We had a date scheduled in June, but the weather turned bad.  We had a date for last Sunday – and the weather was gorgeous!  Despite the potential risk of premature fireworks to dodge–we had every expectation we would be airborne in the evening.  To our dismay, we learned that even a slight wind in the wrong direction has the potential to put a gondola in the middle of a lake, and our ride was cancelled once again.

Tonight was our fifth try… yet, here I sit at my computer during the designated time.  Again, the weather is too iffy (although it was fine enough for Dan and I to play a rousing set of badminton in our front yard–dodging the occasional on-court visits by our canine companion).

I am beginning to question if the hot air balloon in question even exists.  Have we been the victims of some tourist type con game: selling hopes for a beautiful and magical experience floating above it all–in a conveyance that is, in reality, more hot air than balloon?

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