Whoa! Team Riverton With the Flyby of the Tower in Billings

"No Mav. This is not a good idea. Sorry Goose, but it's time to buzz the tower."

One of the hot air balloons came within feet of our radio studios at the top of the Doubletree in downtown Billings...and then the pilot called into the show!

This was awesome. Thursday morning. I forgot the Big Sky Balloon Rally was kicking off this morning. They surprise me every year. And what a beautiful morning it was overlooking Billings, Montana. It looked like a Chatham painting out there with the fog over the river in the distance. And then the hot air balloons started lifting off.

Fast forward to 733 in the morning, David Knobel and I are talking politics LIVE on the radio...when all of a sudden we see the Riverton, Wyoming hot air balloon coming right for us. At first it looked like it was gonna land on Montana Avenue during morning drive traffic...but then it started gaining altitude and climbed right next to our studio windows on the top floor, 23rd floor, of the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Billings.

Check out the video:

One of the folks who commented on that video on X said, "Can you imagine being in one of the hotel rooms downstairs when the balloon went by!?!? Coming out of the bathroom after a shower, in a towel and someone in a basket goes floating by.

That very thing actually DID happen. About an hour later, our Top Gun producer Caden Bjornstad was able to get the pilot of the Riverton, Wyoming hot air balloon on the radio with us. He had the whole thing under his control the entire time. When they passed the hotel room windows, pilot Andy Samuelson said they had folks waving at them from their hotel room windows, and they were waving back.

If you go about halfway through this podcast in the 7a hour you will hear David and I spot the balloon. Then at the very end of the 8a hour podcast you can hear the pilot talk about the trip.

And now I am even MORE excited for the US Navy Blue Angels to come back to Montana next summer!