A few months ago, Bob had declared this “the summer of aviation”. That is, he had this ambitious bucket list that included riding in a hot air balloon, on a helicopter and a blimp. Well! We checked off his helicopter dream last weekend. And it was all kinds of awesome.
I got to sit up front (best seat in the houuuuuse!) and be Dan’s co-pilot. I think that’s what his name was. He was very sweet and kept giving me random thumbs up throughout the ride. Just like that picture up there.
I was a little anxious pre-flight, but once we ascended, it wasn’t nearly as choppy or bumpy as I’d imagined and I felt completely at ease. So much so that I wanted to stay up there longer. The ride was about 15-20 minutes, but it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to live in that sky! At least for extra 20 minutes anyway.
The ride was AMAZING. The views were stunning and I couldn’t help but feel like I was living in a postcard. I took a good amount of pictures, but mostly I set the camera down on my lap and made sure to take it all in. We hovered near Ellis Island, Liberty Island, Governors Island and between the west side of Manhattan and northern New Jersey. We saw all the iconic buildings, the Verrazano Bridge, Central Park and I even clearly spotted my office building. It was so cool to see all those landmarks from a different point of view.
Side note: Don’t mind the color and exposure inconsistencies in each of these photos. These were taken by both me and Bob and they were processed separately as well. And a couple of them are pictures of pictures. Scanning is apparently too complicated for me.
In case you’re interested, we flew with Zip Aviation, which I’d recommend. The staff was nice and the experience was incredible! I bought my tour through this Groupon deal.