Shortly after going outside I was surprised by a sudden blotting out of the sun. One moment I was cooking in the direct sunlight and the next a huge shadow covered me. Looking up I saw that a hot air balloon had managed to position itself between me and the sun. It wasn't too close but it was moving pretty quickly. In fact, it was moving right toward me. At this point the balloon was still a couple hundred feet in the air.

It may not look like it when we see balloons from the ground but they are very big. As this one came closer and closer I was amazed at the size. This was something I knew the kids would want to see. By the time I ran into the house and yelled at the kids the balloon was almost on top of my house. It was running from the east to the west. Within just a few more seconds the balloon passed directly over my house and began to descend.

From our point of view in the frontyard it looked like it was landing in our pool in the backyard! We ran through the house and found that the balloon was just landing in the dirt on the other side of our back fence. After it landed the riders got out and the staff managing the balloon began the process of deflating it and packing it up. It took them over an hour to put the whole thing away.

It was an exciting adventure for the whole family. In fact, that's probably as close as the whole family will ever get to riding all together in a hot air balloon. This is certainly something we would never have seen in Oregon.

Below are a few pictures from the event. The first picture shows the balloon approaching the house from the east. The sun is shining behind it. The second picture shows the size of the balloon as it went over our house. The third is what we saw when we thought it was coming down in our backyard. In the last picture the balloon deflation has started. Even so, it is still quite large.