Saint Valentine's Day Hat Trick
No, not an ice hockey hat trick - it was a Valentine's day hat trick. Like in hot air ballooning, geocaching. It'll make sense. Read on.
Here's Jennifer pretending not to be cold. (She's so very polite.) Notice the lovely knit hat.
Reading this, you are comfy warm. Jenny is standing next to a fan blowing 20°F cold air into the bottom of what's about to become a HOT air balloon.
Despite the cold, it was a lovely way to start this special day.
She lost the beautiful knit hat.
It was like slow motion. Jenn looked up toward the top of the balloon, and as her head went back, off and overboard went the hat. We leaned over the rail helplessly and watched it fall away like a very expensive leaf. Unfortunately, it disappeared into a line of trees. There was no way to land or find it.
Jenny
The wondrous flight continued to the traditional Champaign toast. It was a nice day.
That night, I got to thinking about geocaching. Geocaching is an emerging hobby where people hunt for things using a GPS. I thought I could make my own geocache hunt. I'd use Google Earth to remember where Jenny's hat fell, locate the spot and program those coordinates into my GPS.
This would be my first geocache adventure! I could hardly wait for morning.
The coordinates - calculated and converted for the GPS turned out to be only 8 feet off! And THAT eight feet, I tell you, can be accounted for by the height the hat was in the tree! MY calculations were perfect! PERFECT!
So much information early on Monday morning!
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That is the house I was thinking of. You can see in the GoogleEarth photo their garden and pond. I always check that place out when flying over it in the summer . . . the beautiful manicured garden, pumpkin patch, etc.
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Oh wow! What a great story! What a great way to spend Valentine's Day! My Pop is really into Geocaching, and we have gone on quite a few hunts ourselves--such a fun thing to do! Your balloon adventure, with the impromptu hat-drop, makes for an even better way to start a day of geocaching! You could drop little packages and hunt for them later.... thanks for sharing, and so glad your friend got her hat back! It is a nice hat!
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Steve: Your Mother is going to chastise you for another spelling error!
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I'm okay with that. It's inevitible.
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Steve, I'm impressed. 8 feet isn't much more than the GPS noise!
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How fun was that?! It all worked out perfectly!
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What an awesome adventure and sub-adventure!
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Champaign is a city in Illinois.
Champagne is a wonderful adult beverage from France.
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Very cool - and nice flying caught on camera as well!
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