A little piece of heaven... hot air ballooning over Napa (Goal #9)

During my trip to Northern California last week, I was fortunate enough to have the chance to take a hot air balloon ride over beautiful Napa Valley. I had kind of written off the balloon ride goal, not knowing when or where I'd have a chance to do it (I really didn't want to balloon over NYC) or who would want to join me. I mentioned it casually (and half jokingly) to my friend Anthony as one of the goals I wanted to achieve when I was in Cali and was pleasantly surprised when he told me that he was down and had actually been thinking of doing the exact same thing during our trip! He did a little research and found a great Balloon company in Napa- Balloons Above the Valley who charter sunrise balloon rides over beautiful wine country, followed by a complimentary champagne brunch

We had to be in Napa (about an hour away from Oakland) and at our launch location at 6:15am... which meant we had to get up hella early (4:30am!). Needless to say there were few pictures of me taken during this flight as we barely had time to shower and wipe the crust out of our eyes before getting on the road. Once we got to the location we were put in vans and shuttled to our launch site, where they were busily blowing up the balloons....

Hot air balloons are filled with propane gas, which is loud and REALLY hot. I was afraid that it would be cold in Northern Cali that early in the morning, but the heat from the 4 gas tanks was blazing.... and really close my head... The website instructed us to dress in layers, but there really was no need.

The balloons rise pretty quickly when the gas is on full and soon we were floating far above the wine country. Napa is a valley (for some reason it just clicked with me on this trip that a "valley" is the depression between hills/mountains, but anyway... moving on...) that is full of vineyards. There were a bunch of balloons dotting the sky that morning.

Vineyards everywhere... my kind of place...

Our sister and brother balloons basking in the sunrise...


Another view of the vineyards and a sleepy little neighborhood


Balloon shadow on vines...


Here's Anthony and I... sleepy, but so blessed and thankful for the experience


Speaking of Anthony... at some point he pointed to a dry, dusty looking patch of unused land (see below) and asked me if that's what Indiana looked like.... and he was completely serious... SMH Californians


After the ride was over, it was these guy's jobs to pull our balloon back down to earth... I was shocked that we were still doing this kind of thing by hand... I mean isn't there some sort of machine that should be pulling big 2 ton balloons... not 3 little high school dudes on summer break.... it looked real difficult... :-/


After our balloon ride we were treated to a champagne brunch back at the main store... where we proceeded to get tipsy on mimosas before we even started our Napa wine tasting adventures.

Ballooning experience was amazing. The sights were breathtaking, the company was wonderful and we couldn't have asked for a more clear and beautiful California morning. I would definitely love to go on another hot air balloon ride. Despite being stuck in the middle of the sky in a balloon full of propane gas, it was extremely relaxing to be sort of bobbing along with the wind. This would be a great excursion for anyone who wants a unique experience in the air, but isn't really a thrill seeker.

Thanks to Anthony for making this goal a reality and I couldn't have picked a better ballooning partner :-)