Balloon unrolled in preparation for inflation.
They used a high powered fan to blow air directly into the balloon and it filled up in good time.
Action shot! They told us that you better use the bathroom now before the balloon finishes inflating...
Almost there...
And just a bit of heat to help top it up.
Birthday Boy and Birthday Planner.
Got lots of good aerial views of the farmland in the area, including these corn fields.
Not content with flying high above the corn fields, we dropped back down to
We passed over Putah Creek and if you look carefully at the center of the picture, you can see the balloon's reflection!
Another large field, this one filled with tomatoes!
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
About 460 ft in the air. Approximately...
The other balloon floating through the morning sky just a little ways behind us. Gorgeous photo, and a good example of the clarity of the skies.
And finally back on solid ground watching the balloon deflate.
There it goes.
Happy Balloon-goers.
We also helped stuff the massive balloon back into its storage sack.
The flight crew, including our pilot Mike.
After catching a bit of breakfast in Downtown Napa, we hit the road to visit some wineries. Can you see our excitement?
Grapes on the vine.
The four of us enjoying the amazing, warm Napa valley weather at the Beringer winery.
Outside of the Beringer mansion.
Inside one of the many tasting rooms at the Beringer estate.
We settled on the food (in this case chocolate) and wine pairing tasting. Pretty good stuff I'll say. The friendly man behind the bar substituted the Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon ($$$$$$) for the Port (< $).
And we stopped by Rutherford Hill next so that Diana & Nick could try the rosé. They found the taste unimpressive.
This looks somewhat fake, but I stand by the legitimacy of this photo and the white balloon which we took the picture with.
It looked pretty neat the first time, so why not take another pic?
The view from Rutherford Hill before we called it a day and started heading on home (well, with a stop-off in San Francisco for some Belgian style french fries).
Pretty busy, full up day of celebration. We started the day not too long after 4am in order to make it to the launch on time and we didn't make it home till about 10pm after watching Limitless on Blu-ray at Nick & Diana's. Happy Birthday Nick and I'm hopeful that we'll all have plenty, exciting birthdays to come in the future. Go the All Blacks!!!
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2 comments:
Hi friend! Thanks for stopping by my blog. It's great to hear from you! Your hot air balloon ride seems amazing. I've always wanted to do that. Seems like you all had a great time in Napa!
Wow, I had no idea you went hot air ballooning and wine tasting within a couple weeks that I did! Except in different locations :)
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