Happy Birthday Lillian Kuhn, her first ever hot air balloon ride at 90 years young

Happy Birthday Lillian Kuhn, who took her first ever hot air balloon ride Saturday morning on her 90th birthday. It was a tethered balloon ride in the Riverton Balloon Club’s Cloud Kisser with Riverton Rendezvous Balloonmeister Pat Newlin piloting. Her ride occurred just after all 25 balloons in the 33rd annual early morning rally took off from the launch field at Central Wyoming College.

At the urging of her children, Mary Snyder of Fort Collins and Ken Kuhn of Pavillion, the birthday girl reluctantly agreed to the adventure, although she was a bit frightened and “shaking like a leaf” beforehand. Lillian was assured that the balloon wasn’t going to take off on her, since it was anchored to several pickup trucks on long strong ropes. In fact, the balloon club lifted Cloud Kisser on a test flight just before Kuhn got on board, to reassure her that it was going to be alright.

“It’ll be fine mom,” both her children said, “and you will be able to see your house once you get up into the air.”

After getting into the balloon’s basket, with her daughter, and the balloon slowly lifted off, a smile broke out on Lillian’s face and she exclaimed, “I can’t believe I’m doing this!” At that moment, the 100 or so folks waiting for their tethered rides broke out in the happy birthday song and gave her a nice round of applause.

When the balloon came back down after about two minutes up in the air, Lillian said, “That wasn’t too bad.” The whole affair was video taped in HD by Mike McKrimmon from the Wyoming Office of  Tourism, who put a lapel microphone on her blouse and recorded the chatter while she was hovering over the launch field. A family friend also recorded the flight on a cell phone.

Happy Birthday Lillian, we’re glad you had a 90th birthday you’ll not soon forget!

via County 10.