Andrew,
My sons best friend is a licensed balloon pilot (he is 19). His father fly's commercially, and my son has been on the chase crew many many times, just for the fun of it. He offers a pretty cool champagne breakfast flight, among others. If you ever plan on being in the Pittsburgh area, shoot me an email and i will set you up with them. They have a beautiful balloon and are super nice people. he is VERY experienced.
For my sons senior prom, they were going to pilot the balloon to the hotel where the prom was being held, but the hotel would not give them permission to land, so they did some tethered rides.photo ops in their back yard before the prom.
Oh, BTW, your wife does NOT look like she is getting comfortable in that pic...

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