See the World

Well folks, here’s an interesting twist – I’ve decided not to travel home on a working freighter; instead, I’m going to be flying home the old-fashioned way – hot-air balloon!

It’s going to extend the trip a bit as I am going to have to basically go east rather than west and the length of the trip is going to be governed completely by the various weather conditions encountered; however I do believe that this little bit of “thinking outside the box” should most definitely assure an interesting journey. There is always the possibility that I might not make it, but life’s full of risks and I think I’ll be okay…

I met this guy – a Mr. Sloof Lirpa – at this Irish pub yesterday evening and he informed me of this rather interesting bet that he made with is buddy. You see Sloof’s one of those eccentric multi-millionaires with a LOT of free time on his hands and he’s a well-seasoned balloonist. He’s completed many rather time consuming (and distance consuming) trips in the past, but he has yet to try the coup de grâce of the ballooning world – the round the world trip. When mentioning this to his buddy just a few weeks ago, he pretty much got dared to do it. He mentioned that a wager was involved however never actually told me what the stakes were – I’m assuming it’s quite a bit; although Sloof seems to me like a guy that would do pretty much anything if anybody’s fool-hearty enough to doubt that he actually would…

The coolest part is that, although Sloof usually does these trips as a lone traveler, he invited me along for the ride (well, a large portion of the ride as I will be leaving the balloon at a still to be determined landing somewhere as near to Detroit as we can manage). I was telling him how my work here has now ended and that I was planning on heading back to the states soon and he seemed more than happy to invite me on his little trip. He said that it would be a nice change to actually have another along for the ride since the conversations he usually has with the voices in his head are becoming a bit repetitious as of late. I’m hoping that the many stories of my own life (many of which can be read earlier in this blog) will be enough to keep him interested so that he doesn’t decide to throw me out of the journey somewhere in the middle of the Ukraine or anything… Nah, this guy seems pretty “on the level” (well, if you discount the conversations he frequently has with “voices in his head” and all, but we all have our little idiosyncrasies, right?) – I’m sure he won’t leave me abandoned…

Not only that, but the trip ends up being no cost to me! How sweet is that? Sloof said that he would gladly cover all the provisions for both himself and me – he is, after all, a multi-millionaire. I figure that he would be more than happy to pay my way just for the added companionship he would be getting. Heck, I’m worth it!

So anyway, we’re currently scheduling departure in the next couple of weeks. This changes my plans a bit as communication during the journey will be extremely limited. I figure I’ll just try to keep in touch with my parents at any rest locations we end up landing in and pretty much take it from there. I’ve always wanted to “see the world”, and what better way is there than by hot-air balloon?!

bis später,

Coriolis