One of the most photographed set of mountains of the US are the Maroon Bells. I’ve wanted to visit these majestic peaks, which are near Aspen, but never wanted to make the 4-hour trek just for them. Since we were in the area I added them onto our itinerary. The plan was to visit them Saturday after the launch, but the rain made that impossible. Worked out better anyway since the weather was perfect on Sunday! Mid 60s and sunny! I was hoping for more fall colors, but since Aspen had snow well into May this year, the turning of the colors was delayed.  I think I still got some spectacular photos, regardless.

You can find additional pictures here!

The good weather from Saturday afternoon continued into Sunday, which means — the balloon launch was a go!

Look who’s in the balloon basket!

Looking down at the balloon festival (I LOVE this shot!)

 
Snowmass Village from a couple hundred feet up in the air!

 
Even Humpty Dumpty was there!

Do you see Noah & Logan in the background? Neither do I…

I was placed with Michael and “Old Yeller, who came all the way up from Albuquerque. I’ll tell you what, when you’re short, it’s not as easy as it looks to get into the basket. There’s a small foot step but that doesn’t help much when the remaining distance is still the length of your inseam! Plus, inside the basket was already the pilot, Michael, and three fuel canisters. Once I was situated, a 9-year old boy joined in. He was lifted in by his dad and made a much more graceful entrance.  Logan cried until we took off.

Halfway through the ride we touched down and swapped out the boy for his dad. Then I was squished between two grown men and the fuel canisters. There really is not a lot of wiggle room in those baskets. I pretty much only had as much space and my footprint. However, it didn’t distract from the experience.

Snowmass had set up targets around the golf course and in the neighboring fields for the balloonists to hit with tennis balls.  The targets were inner tubes and each balloon had numbered balls (for the record I was in balloon #23). Unfortunately for us, even though there was not a lot of wind that morning, whenever we got close to our target the wind would shift and move us away. We never did get close enough to drop the balls.

Most of the time we were around 250-feet above the ground (appx 8400-feet above sea level). At our highest we were probably 300-350-feet up in the air. I am not afraid of heights, but it was a little nerve-wracking at the initial lift off when I realized that if something happened to the balloon we would plummet to the ground like a rock. But the scenery soon took over that thought. I also chit-chatted with the 9-year old to help calm him.

We were up in the air for just under an hour before we landed in someone’s front yard. Not like it mattered, 65% of the houses in Snowmass Village are vacation homes and the one we landed in front of easily fit into the category.  A bunch of teenie bobber girls did come by to gawk.

After collapsing the balloon and stuffing it into a bag we headed back to the field, where Noah and Logan met us, and enjoyed a champagne toast to commemorate a successful flight.

It was a fantastic experience and one that I would not might doing again! Next year, we’re going to try to go to the balloon festival in Albuquerque. Maybe we’ll run into Michael and “Old Yeller”.  Which reminds me, I need to send him some of the pictures we took.

Want to see more photos? Go here.

Twitter is good for something other than getting news stories before anyone else. It’s also good for communicating with some of my favorite companies – like Chobani Greek Yogurt (@Chobani). Yum!

Last week I complained about a bad cup of yogurt, on twitter, and got a response from the company. I started to follow them, and learned that they were going to be at a hot air balloon festival near Aspen. Well, you must know by now that I have an affinity for balloon festivals.  I told Noah about the launch, not really expecting that we would make the nearly 4 hour drive to go to it. Chobani had a twitter contest to win one of 10 hot air balloon rides. Now, riding in a hot air balloon is pretty high on my proverbial bucket list but it’s expensive (the companies in Boulder run around $250/per person). Never expecting to win, I entered the contest on Tuesday.

Wednesday morning, over breakfast, I casually mentioned to Noah that I entered for a chance to go up in a balloon. That same day I had mention on facebook that I was giving away Rockies tickets. After I dropped Logan off at daycare I checked my phone to see if I had any bites, when lo and behold! I had a tweet from Chobani telling me that if I could make it to Snowmass I won one of the rides! [Insert OMG moment here] I think I literally squealed and bounced up and down in my car. I called Noah and said, “Guess what? We’re going to Snowmass this weekend!”

Last month I entered a text contest with a local radio station and received a response that I won tickets to a concert in Cheyenne only to find out that the station goofed and I didn’t actually win.  So,  Noah and I were a little weary about booking a hotel just yet until I had more specific details. We decided to stay in Glenwood Springs because it was along I-70, cheaper and had more stuff to do, then we would just drive down to Snowmass (about 35 min from Glenwood).

Logan loved the bed in the hotel!

The view from our hotel room.

I was scheduled to go up Saturday morning. Now, it had rained all Friday night, and was still raining Saturday morning as we got to the field. Not a good sign, but I still held some hope. Alas, I was not surprised when the event was cancelled for the day.  But that only meant I had to bug Chobani about what was to happen next. Could I go up on Sunday? By the afternoon I was informed that everything would be done on Sunday to get me up in a balloon but Snowmass could not make any promises. Fingers and toes were immediately crossed that everything would work out. I really wanted to go up in a balloon!

Did I forget to mention that it rained just about all day on Saturday? So the hikes we had planned were also cancelled. At least he seemed to rain the heaviest at a part of the day that nicely coordinated with nap time.

We did go down to Aspen after after the balloon festival was cancelled. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I saw. Plus, it was still so early on in the day that nothing was open except for a couple of (expensive) cafes. There was a farmer’s market, but we didn’t want to wonder around it in the rain.

Despite the rain, we were given periods of false hope of clearing weather by sneaky peaks of sunshine and thinning clouds. At one point it finally looked like it was clearing so ventured out to ride the Gondola to the top of Iron Mountain. Only to get there and find out that they were shutting it down because another storm was moving in. And voila! No sooner were we back in the car before the monsoon hit.

While waiting for the weather to clear we visited a cozy historical museum. It was great to learn a bit about the local timeline.  There was a young girl there with her mom, I’d guess she was about 10 years old. She noticed a typewriter and asked her mom what it was. (!!) I could not help but snicker out loud when she equated returning the carriage to pressing the enter button on a computer. Am I so old now that I’m shocked that the youth of today are ignorant to devices I had growing up?

We were finally able to make it up the mountain a couple hours later, and it was worth the wait! The skies had cleared and the scenery was just breath-taking!

Glenwood Canyon, looking east from the top of Iron Mountain

Also at the top of the mountain was an adventure park. There were cave tours (of which you could not pay me to take), a roller coaster down the mountain, bungee jumping, live music and several other fun activities. Logan was on the verge of a meltdown, but we still managed to get a few picture.

Additional pictures can be found here.