Balloons!

William, early on in the planning for this trip, decided to plan a surprise, special morning in Sedona heading up as a family in a hot air balloon – bucket list activity for both of us and something we hoped the boys would love.

We woke up around 5am to finish packing up at the Sedona house and headed to the meet up spot. Sedona is one of the few areas in the world where hot air balloon conditions are a 12-month a year possibility — and Red Rock Balloons has a number of ‘captains’ who have been doing this for 20-30 years. We met our captain and immediately felt at ease and also LOVED how welcoming he was to the boys. He made sure they (and we) felt comfortable and involved them in the setup and breakdown process.

So to start.. the setup! There were 2 other balloons taking off as we were. It was incredible to see the balloons taken out of the trailers and setup in ~20 minutes. The boys were able to walk around in the balloon while it was being initially inflated with a fan. They got out of there before the flame started to heat up the air!

The take-off was incredibly smooth and the balloon’s movement was without any hint of turbulence. We saw Sedona from such a beautiful perspective. Shepherd was entirely comfortable throughout the trip. Rawls, I think, had some nerves looking out over the balloon’s edge and spent a good bit of time watching the journey from the peepholes at the bottom of the basket. Towards the end of the trip, Rawls became more comfortable sitting on the interior basket edge.

We were airborne for at least an hour and the view was magical. William and I didn’t feel any nerves throughout, but admittedly were unsure what to expect with the landing. No need to worry here — our captain landed the basket gently in the middle of a dirt lane, 50 feet from where the Red Rocks team was waiting.