Hot Air Balloon Ride

My mom and Blair came out to visit us over the first week in March. One of the first days they were here, we went hiking at Thunderbird Park near our house in the morning. Afterwards we went to get a few things to make lunch, and we saw several hot air balloons taking off. Jason and I see these every morning and night by where we live and we've always talked about wanting to do it sometime. We decided right then and there that we should try to do a balloon ride while we were all together. We called and scheduled it for that same day at sunset. Once we arrived, we got to be a part of getting the balloon ready for take-off. There were about five other balloons leaving with ours. The actual ride wasn't as scary as I thought it might be. A guy in our balloon proposed to his girlfriend while we were in flight! On the way back down to land, we saw a coyote running by us. We had a rough landing (in a desert shrub) and everyone had to crouch down in the basket and hold on for dear life... its funny now but at the time I thought I was going to be thrown out. Once we "crash landed" in the desert, vans came to meet us and set up tables and candles for our dinner. We had champagne and really good appetizer and dessert snacks while out in the middle of nowhere with the scorpions. It was a great experience and I would do it again!