The Balloonist's prayer.

This was our prayer after the balloon ride - of course it should have been at the end of the story.
May the winds welcome you with softness.

May the sun bless you with its warm hands.

May you fly so high and so well that God

joins you in laughter and sets you gently

back into the loving arms of Mother Earth.

David our pilot read the prayer followed by the traditional champagne toast.

Spring Break 2013

I know I say it every year but this Spring Break was special. It didn't start out so well; the weather in Florida was stormy so the plane that was to pick us up in Greensboro was delayed, so I got to the airport at 11:00am and we finally boarded around 5pm. When I finally got to St. Pete's Cher was waiting and Ed was circling while we picked up my luggage. They took me to one of our favorite restaurants. They do sushi, hibachi and Italian, and it's all good. Cher and Ed get special service because Cher writes about restaurants in her blog.

Next day Monday the 25 was Tina's birthday, Tina is Ed's Mom and she and I are like sisters. It's like we lived parallel lives, so many places in common. I was wearing my new french design t- shirt, I said something in French and Tina responded in French. Who knew? We ended up singing the French national. We went to lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, then shopping at our favorite store.

Tuesday we had tickets to the Tampa Bay Lightning hockey game. That was one of Cher’s birthday presents from Ed. First we dined at the restaurant in the coliseum, it’s called Firestick. We lucked out the buffet was seafood. I love crab legs imagine my joy when I saw huge mounds of Alaskan King crab legs, and Jumbo shrimp. They had lots of other things but they were my favorites.

The Lightning won, I can’t remember the other team, I was cheering for Tampa. 

                                                                                          

The next day Wednesday the 27th was Cher’s birthday. We went to the Brit shop in search of Humbugs for my friend Doreen, and of course we had to buy some Cadburys the real stuff!
Lunch was at a little gift store with a café in the back. We had a lovely pot of tea, a really good chicken salad sandwich. We ordered scones, I hate to say it but they were horrible. I’ve been spoiled with the ones Cher makes. In the evening we went to dinner at a Thai restaurant.

This the flower bouquet birthday cake, gorgeous and NO CALORIES! Cher loves owls so that was one of my gifts to her.

Thursday was our big adventure. We had to get up at 4am (ugh!) to meet the balloon crew at 5am. They met us at Mimi’s where were to have lunch after the ride Now I thought we would go to where the balloon was and take off. Wrong!!! It takes quite a while to get the balloon ready to become airborne. First picture unfolding the balloon.

The scariest part was getting into the balloon, in the picture you can see the square holes, that’s where you put your feet to get in. I don’t know how I did it, but I remember holding on to the side of the basket, sliding down from the top. Some poor man hauled me out at the end of the ride. It was so peaceful and smooth, literally floating on air. The basket had 5 compartments, 2 people to each one, and the center for David our pilot. We scared the cows they took off running, Cher saw a couple of deer. The only time I got nervous when we were approaching our landing field, we were close to tension wires. David assured me he would go up and over them. It’s pretty amazing the pilot can only go up and down. I’m grateful for the calm winds.

You can see the shadow of the balloon.

                                The dreaded tension wires.                

Well! I think it's time for dinner. To be continued..................