Whhhhoooooosssssshhhhhhh!!!!

Mr. W. and I were late to work this morning. This isn't so unusual, but today we were really late. As in 30 minutes late. Why?

Because we had hot air balloons in our backyard early this morning. Okay, not really in our backyard, but they floated right over our swingset and over our roof. I was hauling the garbage out to the curb when I heard a really loud whhhhhoooooooosssssshhhhh that sounded like it was coming from directly behind me. I whirled around and discovered a hot air balloon about 30 feet off the ground right behind our house. He was so low, I don't think he would have cleared our roof. The whoosh was from the driver lighting his gas, and up, up, up he went.

S. was in the garage getting into her carseat, and I called for her to come out and see the balloons. Behind the balloon that got my heart pumping came another dozen or so following near identical paths. Mr. W. came running out of the house with his belt hanging loose to see what was going on. L. wanted to see the bawoooooos too, but the sounds of them firing up the gas scared her a bit. She was fine so long as I had her on my hip...

Mr. W. took pictures and caught some video of the balloons as they sailed by. I'd love to post them, but (and I'm almost ashamed to admit this, LOL) I have dialup at home and it would take forever to load. This also explains why there are precious few photos on my blog. It is the work of 15 to 20 minutes to upload a single small one.

I'm beginning to hate YouTube. So much hysterical-ness, and so little bandwidth. Work internet speed is much faster, but the nanny program keeps me out of such sordidness as YouTube (and even The Leaky Cauldron sob, sob).

Back on task. It was too funny passing everybody parked on the side of the road to watch the balloons sail by (including the jocks at the high school). Our little town is part of a balloon race course this year. Here's an article from the Waco paper, I think you have to sign in (but it's free). http://www.wacotrib.com/featr/content/features/stories/2007/07/19/07192007wacnatballoonchamp.html