Hot air balloons

We went to Callaway Gardens today for the Sky High Hot Air Balloon festival. We discovered we are too impatient to be ballooners! We did get to see a few lift off. We think the others decided to deflate and skip take-off. It had been hot all day with only one breeze to cool us the whole time we were there, until time for the balloons to lift off. It then became windy. The balloon that was tethered to the ground for rides blew so hard that the basket tipped over twice with lots of passengers in it. We had discussed letting the kids go up with me but decided the line was too long and also heard it only went 10-20 feet off the ground. It ended up that they never even let passengers go up on the tethered rides.

 When the first hot air balloon lifted  off the ground there were lots of oohs and aahs, followed by gasps, as the balloon's basket hit the top of a magnolia tree. The balloon went right over our heads. The mishap caused a burn in the lower portion of the balloon and the basket was rocking pretty hard for a while before it settled down. This event was followed by RuRu running toward me and proclaiming, "I don't want to go up in the basket!!!"  She had both fear and tears in her eyes. I couldn't help but laugh first, then we assured her she was NOT going on the ride. She was relieved to hear it!

 When we gave up on the balloons we went for a swim in the lake then headed home. Although the kids had fun swimming, playing shuffleboard and doing the bungee bounce (RuRu decided to skip that too) the highlight of their day was when we made a quick stop to see the Tuleys and Womacks at the chalet where they were vacationing in Pine Mountain. They were thrilled to see all of Clem's cousins again (especially James- SL and A think he's "so cute!").

The highlight of the day for Chris was seeing a HUGE rattlesnake in the road on our way home. We both spotted it as we drove past, so he turned around and went back to get a good look. It "sat" in the road for several minutes before crossing over into the grass. We were stopped on one side of the road and another vehicle was stopped the other direction because the snake was blocking its path. Everyone was gawking at the size and snapping pictures. Check out the size of its rattle! It was 2-3 inches long.