With over 3 inches of rain in the past week or so, I was a little worried about the landing spot choices for this morning’s flight.  I put my concerns to ease with a drive by of most of our usual launch sites on Friday evening.

 

I woke up at 2:45A to check weather, wake-up passengers and crew for a 5:00A meeting time at the Lake Geneva Pie Company.  The weather forecast at 3:00A promised a nice calm inflation, but an early pick up of the winds to 9-10 mph.

 

Our four guests this morning were all carried over from the 2005 season.  Jack and Sue from the Rockford area and Julie from Gurnee and her friend Sue.  Both groups had been cancelled due to poor weather at least 4 times in their first attempts to get a flight off (unsafe ballooning weather).

 

We flew from the Calvary Church at the west end of Lake Como and steered our way to fly right over the Riviera in downtown Lake Geneva!  We entertained the guests of the downtown hotels by dropping down close to the water and hanging out in front of the “Riv”.  Our course was taking us right over the Grand Geneva Resort and Spa and a beautiful soft landing on the asphalt parking lot at the skii hill at the Grand Geneva.

 

Special thanks to our Crew for the day:

John Bullock- Crew Chief

John Rucker- Driver

Philip Koehler- Crewman

Nathan- Crewman

 

jct