Happy Birthday Jilly
So we had a super fun birthday surprise…or more precisely…I DID! Jake booked us a hot air balloon ride over the front range of Colorado. It was pretty spectacular! We had so much fun….even though we did have to wake up at 430AM to get to the “lift-off location”. I had no idea what to expect that morning….I did not know where we were headed so early, or why, until we were walking into an empty field with a couple of people and a large truck and trailer. At first I thought…sky diving…because I told Jake that is exactly what i DID NOT want to do….but I was delightfully wrong. I realized once we walked up to the truck with a giant balloon logo what we were doing and it was just amazing. The balloon by itself weighs over 600 pounds (can you believe that?!). It was HUGE (see pics) compared to us. It took about 10 minutes for it to fully inflate, which is actually much faster than I would have thought. But it was so cool once we boarded the basket and took off.
We got to go to the most magical place on earth this past week: Disney World in Orlando, Florida. We stayed at Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa, which is fashioned after a famous park in New York. The trip was a whirlwind of outstanding cuisine and entertainment, tons of walking and definitely lots of sunshine. We left on Sunday morning, October 9, for FL. The 3.5 hour flight was pretty uneventful, but it sure felt long. After arriving at the airport, we didn’t have to worry about much since Disney does such an awesome job to keep their patrons happy. We took the “Magical Express” right to our hotel, didn’t have to worry about anything, and checked in to our luxurious one-bedroom suite with a huge double bath, large kitchen and amazing views of the fountains around the grounds. We were also right next to a pool, so we pretty much went straight there as soon as we got into our room.
All-in-all it was a true “Adventure” as it was tedious and painful and exhausting, yet very beautiful. We realized that we didn’t have any water purification items with us, so we had to make do with a substitute of tablets that take about 4 hours to purify a liter of water (which is REALLY slow and not very much water when it is the main source of energy during an exhaustive adventure). So that meant we couldn’t really have water during our 6 mile hike with about 50 lbs on our backs to the lake. It was pretty, especially in the beginning, with the golden leaves of autumn. But i have to say that after the first few miles, I was ready to pass out (which I did as soon as we reached our destination).
