The only sound that could be heard was the cooling down of metal, really hot metal.
It croaked and stuttered as it took a break from the fiery furnace bursting out gaseous energy into the enormous rainbow-coloured balloon that floated above us and kept us floating above the ground.
The breaks from the hot air bursts allowed the calm of the mid-morning air 2000 feet over the earth absorb into my skin. The gentle breeze, refreshing on my skin after the heat enveloping me from the gas burners beside me and the scalding burn of the rising sun.
The silence took hold of me as I breathed and watched the beauty of the world go by as we floated over the valley. I would like to say we glided, but the air was so still we really did not move very far. 1.8 miles in an hour to be exact, a little faster than what I could walk.
But, we almost didn’t even make it up from the launch site.