The 4:30 am alarm came early (at 4:10 am, actually) to get us to the Sunday morning balloon launch down at the 2012 Stowe Balloonfest, but we thought it would be worth it - and was it ever!! As teams began prepping balloons, we were approached by a pair of balloonists from Montreal and invited to be their chase team! Seriously? Cool! We were joined by Scott and got to help set up Danielle & Leo's butterfly ballon, inflate it, launch it, chase it driving their balloon van, celebrate a safe landing with champagne with gracious home owners, and help load the balloon back in the van! We even got treated to a lovely balloonists' brunch with Danielle and Leo! Wow! We'd hoped to get close up, didn't imagine we would get to be hands on! Danielle and Leo are a delight. So nice, such a wonderful approach to their ballooning. They've traveled the world ballooning - showed us photos from ballooning in the Alps. Turns out, they have a number of balloons and hand-crafted this butterfly balloon! Amazing! So much fun. This certainly fueled our fascination with hot air balloons - we hope to get a chance to do this again! I did manage some photos amidst it all - with all that was going on, some have an awkward one-handed shooting angle, the blur of shooting a moving object from a moving vehicle, or glare & colorcast from the windshield, but they will be priceless as memories. Leo and Danielle, thank you so much! We hope to see you again! - Jonathan & Marilyn