My Life and Travels
Back on the road heading toward Big Bend National Park in south west Texas. 222.4 miles today. It was cold last night, 27 degrees this morning.
We have been here many times before, great location. In site 8.
We moved 50 miles north for a little quiet and to relax for a couple of days.
Drive and campsite 39 pictures:
One of the other people in our Fiesta group also got to fly on Wednesday and they took this picture of the launch field.
I am in this picture, do you see me.
I’m in the basket under the Balloon with the arrow pointing at it. I guess I am a little hard to see.
Today’s picture was taken by Don Clapp, he has more amazing photos over on his Facebook page..
This morning was a good example of the difficulties of getting a balloon off the ground. The envelope was standing, John was in the basket with Bruce, when a gust of air came through the north end of the field on a diagonal line. This gust was maybe 100 wide and took out 5 or 6 balloons including ours.
One balloon was blown off the ground while still tethered to his pickup. Another dozen balloons who had their envelopes laying out on the ground put them back in the bag and called it a day.
One of the 1 inch round plastic supports which hold up the burner while the balloon is on the ground was broken off. Bruce had to go to Cameron balloon tent to have the end stuck that was in the basket drilled out and bought a new support. While he was there a special shapes balloon came in for a new set of four supports. All four of his got broken off.
Several hundred balloons went up today. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. If we had been five minutes ahead of today’s time table we would have flown.
Thank you Bruce Skach balloon ZROZRO7 – my first balloon ride. In a couple of days I will get more pictures and videos up on the website.
Again, Thanks Bruce it was amazing!!!
See the October 2019 Video page to watch the first video I took during the flight. Videos are on their own page because of their size. For people living on the road data has to be watched every day. The video is 25 megs long and is the October 09, 2019 section.
Video Page
Here are the pictures I took during the flight. I wanted to enjoy the flight and not spend the whole time taking pictures and videos.
I joined the Navy while I was still in high school however October 09, 1969 was my first day of active service.
3 years, 1 month, 19 days
Vietnam 11 months, 22 days
Here are some pictures I found
Boot Camp class picture, where am I?
Answer below
This picture is of me and my brother Richard, from the date it must be after leave from bootcamp and on my way to Pensacola, Florida for A School at NCTC Naval Communication Training Center Corry Field.
This is my A School class. I can only remember two names. Chief Cooper and the guy to the right of me is Kyle I don’t remember is last name. When I graduated from A School I ended up being the 20,000th sailor to graduate from the school. They made a big deal about having graduated the 20,000th sailor. The Admiral in charge of Naval Security Group NSG came to Pensacola for the class graduation.
The next three pictures are from Vietnam
I don’t remember why this group picture was taken, however I’m not in it because I took the picture.
This is Dean Carstens and me taken August 20, 1972 (date was written on the back), my guess is Dean and I were going on watch. We were responsible for manning fire point number 13 (I think that was the number) it was a short distance from our workspaces.
Again, don’t know why or when the picture was taken but it is in front of our workspaces. The gate is open and the gate was never left open so we weren’t there very long.
This has to be when my folks picked me up at SeaTac Airport on my way home from Vietnam and out of the Navy.
50 years ago today I went into the Navy. 50 years sounds like such a long time ago, I guess it was a long time ago.
Bootcamp – San Diego, CA
A School – Pensacola, FL
First Duty Station – Bureau of Naval Personnel, Washington, DC – CT (Communication Technician) Detailing (Duty Station) Assignment Office
SERE School – Coronado, CA
Fleet Support Detachment – Danang, Vietnam
Boot Camp picture – Three rows down, three in from the right
We didn’t fly again today. We were getting ready to stand the balloon/envelope up this morning and when he checked the pressure in his propane tanks they were right on the edge of the safety margin. The air temp when I left the coach was 53 degrees. This should have been warm enough for him to have over 50 lbs of pressure but was at 48-50 lbs. He said any place else he would have flown but with all the balloons in the sky here he wanted more pressure so he was sure he would have heat if he needed it. With the current propane pressure the balloon would react slowly.
Jean took these pictures:
On the way back from the launch field I stopped to help a balloon land. It turned out to be a balloon from Kenya we had seen on the news the other night. I recognized his voice/accent so I asked him if he had been on the news this week, he said yes. Really nice guy this is his first Fiesta and seemed pleased with all the help he gets.
When I got back to the coach Jean showed me the pictures she had taken this morning and saw this picture of the balloon I had just helped land.
The red line is pointing at me as I was standing holding down the balloon talking to the pilot ( I’m really good at providing weight to hold down a balloon).
Beautiful sunny morning.
DRAFT – When I trying to write this the internet is so slow I cannot do much an anything. I’ll post this from my computer and try to edit it from my I pad. (1/07/2019 10:11 a.m.)
Jean took these pictures:
I am going to try and place videos on a separate page.
A few pictures Jean took this morning from the RV Park.
The Balloon Fiesta solved the problem of the morning RV Lot buses getting lost in the RV Lot area, we didn’t have any buses. The buses are scheduled to start running at 5:00 a.m., Jean said she heard the first bus at 7:00 a.m. I needed to be at the launch field at 6:00 a.m. at launch square T-6. The neighbor and I walked, fitbit says it is 1.88 miles.
Not many balloons launched this morning, 3/4 of the dawn patrol went up and they all went north onto the reservation and then the fog move onto the launch field.
Here are some pictures from today, since I was going to the field to help Bruce launch his balloon I did not take DSLR these pictures are from my pocket camera I carry to take fish pictures.
This is my first try at video:
This is our site now that everybody has moved in, we are on one of the main roads.
Yesterday we have a thunderstorm come though the area. This is the water mark on a tow vehicle two sites down from us.
