Woke up and chased a hot air balloon!

Ok, this has nothing to do with RepRap.  But read on.

I wake up to Laurie exclaiming “Wake up! Look outside the window!!!”. There, practically filling the entire sky, is a huge yellow hot air balloon!!!

The morning started with this picture. Can you see it?

I ran outside..

So then I ran back inside, grabbed my Segway keys, hopped on the Segway, and tore down the street.

It's got a bear on it! Thank you digital zoom.

I went around the corner (I’d now gone from Brookside Ct to Maple St, and now onto Hampstead), and could just barely see it disappear beyond the trees:

I figured it was completely gone, and that I’d made a mistake by not staying on Maple, but I continued up Hampstead St then took a left onto Howe. I rode for a while without seeing anything..

And then..

It landed!!

...

....

.....

......

It's down

The basket

Deflating

Of course, as always, I can’t say no to someone who’s curious about the Segway:

We started counting how many types of vehicles were within a fifty foot radius.. That included this wheelbarrow:

Putting the balloon in a big wheelbarrow

It was interesting to see what was involved in packing away a huge hot air balloon. My Segway has a bit less maintenance.. but then again, it can’t fly.

Lots of work packing up the basket..

I asked if they had a brochure and they handed me one:

That's the balloon, there on the brochure!

What they end up doing is lifting the basket on a lift and just tying it down lifted.

Ready to drive away

So here’s the summary video describing my crazy experience:

The balloon left from Walmart in Salem, NH and arrived on Shearson Drive in Methuen. Here’s a map to show some idea of the distance it traveled:

View Balloon trip – 2010/06/05 in a larger map

(or click here to see those three places in Google Earth).

It went at least 3.65 miles before reaching our house, and then another .92 miles after that.

Cool!

And sorry that this has almost nothing to do with RepRap. 🙂 It does deal with heat, and this is my vacation week, so maybe I’ll get an actual RepRap post out soon. 🙂