I’ve always wanted to do this

This is what we did on the last full day we had in Sarlat. Although the weather had been a little rainy and nasty the day before, the weather that morning was beautiful. And we got to watch (and help) the inflation of the balloon. The early morning—the very early morning—was well worth it.
This is the site where we took off.


And then we could see this


And this


The wind was fast and a little unpredictable that day, and Patrick, the pilot, said we went much further than usual. After about an hour in the air, he attempted a number of landings, but each time we got closer to the ground, he had to go back up. On the third or fourth try, we started toward a small but mostly-empty field. A tree was heading for us, and Patrick calmly pointed and said, “No problem, this tree.” We smoothly sailed right past it. He pointed to another tree. “No problem, this tree.” We grazed the top of that one, but there was nothing more than a little jolt. He looked down. “No problem, this.”

In case you’ve been wondering about this, when a hot air balloon hits a pile of bricks on the way down, there is a much bigger bump than when it grazes the top of a pine tree.

But the rough landing turned out fine. After a bit of scrambling to get the balloon under control, the only things that wound up damaged were two of the bricks. Richard, Patrick’s assistant, showed up and helped wrangle the balloon (we helped with that, too), and then produced the surprise that Patrick’s website promised. I won’t spoil the surprise—I’ll just tell you that it was awesome.

This is the field where we landed. (The bricks in question are actually stacked in front of the little shed).

And this is a picture of Patrick—who may be one of the coolest people on earth—and Richard.