On Saturday I went with my Godson to ride the Great Orange Balloon. It’s part of a new park the city of Irvine decided to build on the former El Toro Marine Base. Now from a political standpoint I’m not so sure this is the best use of the land. But I’m not even going to go there.

Anyway I was coerced into going with my Godson. As he complained he had not seen me in sooo loonnng. So I grudgingly agreed to go along and sign my life away.

Yep you have to sign a waiver that you won’t hold the city responsible if anything happens.

I was rushed out of my house without lunch. No worries I thought. I’m sure they will have a hot dog stand or something to tide me over.

We arrive and get our tickets. It’s free till 2008. Then they plan on charging $20 for adults and $13 for kids.

It turns out they have 2 vending machines set up. No food stands no nothing.

They also ran out of the free cute little inflatable souvenir balloons. I ended up making a deal with a 10 year old. So for my $4.00 my Godson got his souvenir.

Now I know this is opening weekend, but come on guys. They got over 3 million dollars to fund this thing.

The wait is over an hour with kids and parents that have nothing to do.Talk about a starving crowd! Plus they got in for free so people why not buy an overpriced ice cream?

They could be making that money back very quickly. Hot dog stands, Ice cream. Sodas. Face painting for the kids.

In the meantime we ended up waiting about 2 hours instead of 1. The lovely winds kicked in and they could not take as many people up. We did finally get to view the Irvine landscape from 250 feet.Normally they take you up 450 feet.

You can see the balloon and info at the website below.

http://www.ocgp.org/gpb/

The balloon didn’t pop so I am safely back home writing to you.