My name is Lily Myrick. I’m 13 and got the amazing opportunity to go to a hot air balloon camp. It taught me many things. For example some safety tips, types of baskets, weather apps, and many more great things.
Some useful safety things that I learned was that the fan was the most dangerous job. It could start messing up and really hurt someone. Some things you should do if you are operating the fan are: tie up your hair if it’s long and could get caught in the fan; put necklaces or anything that dangles around your neck either in your shirt or take them off. Don’t wrap the rope around any body part because if the balloon takes off you go with it. Those are just a few safety tips.
Something I learned about at camp was a hopper. I had never heard of one before. It is the envelope with one burner and one propane tank. You strap on one seat. You’re sitting but your legs are dangling. Then you have the rest of the tools you need. You are supposed to bring a helmet so the heat from the burner does not hurt or burn your head.
A very cool and pretty experience up at balloon camp was flying off of a boat above Lake Tahoe. During the flight we did a splash and dash. That’s where the balloon gets lower and lower. Eventually it gets so low that you get part of the basket in the water then you fly back up. It was pretty fun.
Going to hot air balloon camp was an amazing experience that I would love to do again. I would definitely want more people to experience this. Even though you have to wake up really early in the morning, it pays off for what you get to do. I had a very helpful director of the camp. His name was Jeff and he was really great with helping us campers with the questions we had. Unfortunately this was his last year as camp director. The camp was very fun and it was a welcoming place. There were kind and nice people there. Especially Pilots and staff. It’s a good place to make some friends too. If you start talking about ballooning they won’t look at you like you’ve grown two heads. It was also a very pretty place to go to balloon camp. In short balloon camp was amazing!
-Lily Myrick