Cloud Nine

Up and down we went repeatedly.  Sometimes we could see our ground crew.  Several rendezvous were arranged but conditions continued to be great so Lars sent them off to meet us somewhere else.  In all we were in the air for 1 hour and 45 minutes

At times we were brushing the tops of the fruit trees in the valleys.  Had there been fruit on the trees we would have been able to reach out and pick it.   Not far below Lars spotted a red fox and we followed him along the valley.

Eventually we had to come down, landing in a field of glorious spring flowers.  The ground crew caught Kailie's basket as she landed but Lars advised us to adopt the landing position as he expected a bumpy touch down.   It was less than dramatic and the basket remained upright.

Safely back on the ground we were treated to Cloud Nine cocktails, (Champagne and cranberry juice) cookies and cake.   Then it was time to pack up the balloons which involved nothing more strenuous than rolling around on them until they gave up and collapsed.  As luck would have it we landed quite close to Ayvali and arrived back at Gamirasu in time to have our third breakfast of the day.