What do you most want the public to know/understand about hot air balloons and flying them?
Pilots want to fly, but we want to fly safely. We don't have control over the weather, and weather forecast are always changing as well as not being 100% accurate. People wonder why we don't fly when they don't see anything wrong with the weather. We might be looking at sources they don't look at, or we might be concern about what might change before we land. If we are going to error, we try to error on the side of safety. Our balloon "Steampunk Sea" was custom built for our family. There are eight animals on the balloon. Three of those are sewn on the outside. The others are all sew on the inside of the envelope. They are visible during the day if you look closely. If you really want to see them in their full glory, you need to catch them when the balloon is glowing after dark. We often challenge people to see if they can find all eight.
