The Balloon service picked us up from the hotel and basically picked up a van full of others from their hotels. Once the van was loaded we took a 1 hour ride out to the desert. I fell asleep for most of it. It was dark and there was not really anything to see. This is a picture of me when we arrived at our destination.
Needless to say the sun was just coming up. It was actually pretty neat.
It took them a while to blow the balloon up. It was much larger than I was picturing in my head.
At this point I was actually starting to get a little bit excited about the adventure.
When the balloon was inflated enough to stand the basket up we had to hurry up and jump in the balloon before it basically took off. This was me just after we jumped over the side into the balloon.
This is a photo just after they let the tethers go.
Watching the sun rise over the desert in a balloon was such a great experience. It was so pretty.
You could see little farms in the desert and some small villages. The Arabian desert is so beautiful and calming.
There were people from France, Scottland, India and the US the the balloon besides the pilot who was from Hungary. His name was Atilla.
This was so much fun.
It is going to sound wierd, but the sand here is not like California desert sand. It is really beautiful. I could not stop watching it as we floated by.
The balloon ride was a picture palooza if you cannot tell. Eveyone was taking photos for everyone else.
This is Atilla the pilot behind me.
This is right before landing. Did I forget to mention that once the balloon takes off you just float until that fuel runs out? And they quickly gloss over the fact that to land you have to crash. So we had to assume a landing position which was bending your knees and holding on until the basket crash landed.
I will lable this next group of photo's as 'fun in the desert for 1 hour while your ride tries to find you.' It could also be named 'self entertainment in the desert.' It was actually a lot of fun just being an ass.This is a person who was out in the desert. I think he was some kind of farmer from a tribe. He saw the balloon and came to check it and us out. And yes there was a fence in the middle of the desert penning in some kind of a farm.
I was falling asleep or pretinding to since it was taking so long. The sand was actually cold. This is how you would have to sleep if you were stranded in the desert in the Middle East.
Killing time.
Hungry here I think.
Getting bored.
There were no animals in sight. But I found evidence of what I think was a bird.
Not much much life in the desert, but it is really pretty.
I found evidence of camel tracks, but no camels:(
Finally the trucks found us. The crazy Hungarians jumped out of their truck and set up a table for the drinks that they brought.
This is desert tailgating Hungarian style.
The French couple were the ones dressed like they were from teh Matrix.
Being stuck in the desert for an hour and we got mini drinks. Where do you even buy a mini 7 up?
It looked extra small by itself in the desert.
The desert craziness was really setting in.
We were trying to create a mirage with bottled water.
This is teh truck that took us back into the civilized desert area.
Finally got my camera back. Photo from the drive back.
I had been looking for camels and on the drive back to the road we ran into a pack of them. 
Wild Camels...how cool is that?
They were just hanging out eating the grass bunches in teh desert.
This was a power line pole that was runnning through the desert.
Finally back on the road.
More camels
They were like wild dogs in India. Just hanging out everywhere when you figured out what to look for.
When we made it back to the hotel it was time to get back to work.