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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cshaking like a leaf\u201d beforehand. Lillian was assured that the balloon wasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be fine mom,\u201d both her children said, \u201cand you will be able to see your house once you get up into the air.\u201d<\/p>\n
After getting into the balloon\u2019s basket, with her daughter, and the balloon slowly lifted off, a smile broke out on Lillian\u2019s face and she exclaimed, \u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019m doing this!\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
When the balloon came back down after about two minutes up in the air, Lillian said, \u201cThat wasn\u2019t too bad.\u201d The whole affair was video taped in HD by Mike McKrimmon from the Wyoming Office of \u00a0Tourism, 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.<\/p>\n
Happy Birthday Lillian, we\u2019re glad you had a 90th birthday you\u2019ll not soon forget!<\/p>\n