We woke up very early (5:30am) to go watch our friend Kim launch a hot air balloon with 12 passengers, meeting over at the Lake Perris airport. It turned out that Tony & I crewed instead because 2 of her crew didn't show up. Wow. Good thing we were there! When we left our camp site it was not foggy but 20 minutes away at the airpot, it was a bit foggier. Then when we drove to the launch site - it got worse!

After a lot of waiting around, we moved to a different spot that Kim found.

We helped set up the balloon - it was so so big! We rolled out 3 giant tarps on a dirt road and inflated the balloon. Tony helped hold the scoop open with another crew guy and I helped someone else tab the top of the balloon. Before we knew it, the passengers were in the basket and they were up up and away.

Chasing the balloon Kim was in was tricky because it started to get foggy/cloudy in this area eventually and we could not see her at all. Thank goodness for the radios and she ended up coming down in a crazy area full of trash. I'm really glad we had the tarps then. It took awhile to get the balloon down from the area she landed in and to a more flat area. Then we got the tarps set up, the passengers unloaded from the basket and we got the balloon down. Tony milked the balloon and worked so hard. Milked = squeeze the air out of the balloon as it is on the ground starting at the bottom and going towards the top. It felt like it took forever to get the envelope (all the balloon fabric) pushed into the cart it was supposed to fit in. I stepped in a puddle of yucky muddy water that was under the tarp and hit my knee on the lift gate kind of hard. Whoops.

In the truck after we got the balloon all put away.

Then there was the truck of another pilot stuck in the mud so we helped get him out, the guys carried the basket out and up to the road and we helped push the trailer out. All that took so long and I was really getting anxious about getting back to our campsite because people were going to start coming around to the teardrops and we were not there! Oye.

Soothing my anxiety with some poppies.

Back at the campsite we got showered, changed and Tony started a breakfast. Almost noon but thats is alright. We were pretty hungry!

Apple cinnamon oatmeal.

Hot chocolate.

Kodiak pancakes with berry syrup.

Pandy and Hoote still holding down the fort. 

Visited a bunch more teardrops and talked to so many people!

Great side table idea!Great sink idea!

I think I might make this sign with Cricut machine and some vinyl

Loved the inside of this teardrop with all the Route 66 fabric.

Dinner was potluck. We used "S" instead of "H" and brought dessert and I'm glad we did because there were not many desserts. I ate all this up - it was so good!

Then there was a great talent show. These ladies are dancing to a ukelele song

This lady did a great job on the flute and I did not get a picture of a lady named Kathleen but she had some great jokes. There was another lady who told a story, like on that podcast (?) or NPR show (?) "The Moth". She did a fantastic job as well!

Cleaning up and the evening sunset

Evening shot of the teardrop. We took the back tent off since we were leaving early the next morning. This was a nice spot to be parked and we had good neighbors!