July 4--How Was Yours?

What did you do over the July 4th weekend? Cook out? Go to the lake? Yard work? How about you, Kent Couch? You went flying? In a what?

It seems that Kent had a few friends meet him at his Stop and Go Mini Mart in Bend Oregon to help him fill some party balloons with helium and attach them to a lawn chair. Kent lifted off early this morning (7/5) and flew about 9 hours, covering more than 200 miles to land in Idaho. Kent is not the first and will not be the last to try cluster balloon flight. And this is not his first flight. Now, I do not recommend cluster balloons as a means to travel and I could not justify the $6000 for balloons, helium, and other gear (parachute, BB gun, 15-gallon containers of Koolaid for ballast). However, I have to admire the courage and ingenuity of a guy that goes into the back yard and builds an apparatus to soar through the sky unaided.

I wonder if he wore a seat-belt? I wonder how that would work in the southeast where there is always a 20% chance of afternoon thunderstorms? I wonder if his wife bought a new pair of shoes today?