We’ve all got dating disaster stories: she wept uncontrollably when I went in for the kiss, he showed up drunk and ignored me all night, she got in a shouting match with her parole officer.
Or else, and possibly worse yet, we don’t really have any dating stories because our experiences have been boring, uneventful, and forgettable.
You hear less about the great dates, at least great date stories that don’t lead to, “… and we’ve been together happily ever since.” Gag. No, I’m just talking about a great date with someone you may not even keep in touch with any more but with whom you had a great experience.
This is one of those stories.
I’d been dating this girl only a couple of weeks. Our dates consisted of meeting for drinks, casual dinners, and hanging out a few times at the beach. We had quite a bit in common and the conversation was easy.
I felt comfortable asking her to join me on a hot air balloon ride, even though this is something that usually indicates something more serious… a marriage proposal perhaps? But to clear up any misunderstanding (or better, Mrs.-understanding), I explained I’d been offered the opportunity through a connection at a previous job and simply wanted to take advantage of it. Neither of us had ever gone up in one before and thought it sounded fun.
I made the reservation for a Sunday morning and was instructed to be there by 5:30 a.m. Though it was called the “Sunrise Balloon Ride,” I still coughed and asked them to repeat the time anyway. I had heard them correctly. Why so ungodly early? Apparently, the air is stillest in the early morning before the wind wakes up and is therefore better for hot air travel.
My date and I were both pretty laid back, social people, so we sort of kept things open. We went out the Saturday night before our early Sunday morning flight. We were having a good time and we stayed out until bar closing time. At this point, we decided we’d just stay up all night. (At that point, we only had about two hours until we were due to leave.)
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