The Honeymoon - Hot Air Balloon Trip

On the first full day of our trip, we had to get up at 5AM for a sunrise hot air balloon ride through the Arizona desert. We went with a big group and there were four balloons in all. Ours was the last to go up, but we stayed up the longest and went the highest!!

The sunrise was beautiful as we waited for the balloon to inflate. The one we went up in is the biggest hot air balloon in the Phoenix area.

Here we are, ready for lift off! You can see the other three balloons in the background.

Over the desert! There were tons of cacti.
And we went kinda high...

And then really, really high! We all had a bottle of water and we went so high that they were being expanded and crushed during the ups and downs!

You can see how high we are compared to the other three balloons! Then we came back to the ground, skirted the tops of trees for a while, flushed a huge jackrabbit, and came in for our landing.
We didn't know that this was going to happen, but upon landing the crew set up tables in the middle of nowhere in the desert and we had a wonderful breakfast with mimosas...mmmm.
As the deflated and packed the balloon, Jay and took a walk around checking out the desert. Here's Jay with a teddy-bear cactus.
And me with a big old saguro cactus. They told us that these types of cacti don't grow their first 'arm' until they are about 50-75 years old, so this one is really old.

Jay had to get in on the action too!

It was awesome! Thanks John and Rita!