Back in the eighties my wife saw a balloon being tethered on the front lawn of a historic plantation house in Nashville and remarked at how cool it was, as it turned out the pilot was the son of the man who owned the car dealership where she and I had worked, so we went over and introduced ourselves and the rest is history.  We spent about twenty years flying rides, competing, and just having fun all over the mid south. We wore out a couple of balloons, then got tired and quit.