Almost Like a Movie: View Fireworks from a Zeppelin

By ALYSIA GRAY PAINTER

Updated 8:00 AM PST, Fri, Jul 3, 2009

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Airship Ventures

Time was you were more likely to see a Zeppelin drifting across a movie screen than through the clouds. ("Up" was the most recent flick, although that was a dirigible, we think, or perhaps the Zeppelin and the dirigible are one and the same?)

We're also thinking of the airship in "The Rocketeer" -- Bill Campbell, hugs to him -- and of all the exciting fight scenes that have taken place atop Zeppelins throughout cinema history. Because, right? If you have a Zeppelin in a movie, characters are going to be clinging to the outside of it, fist-a-cuffing, at some point. A rule.

But there's a big, real, not-celluloid Zeppelin in town, piloted by Airship Ventures, and you can board it to view Fourth of July fireworks. Feels cinematic to us, and highly-special-occasion-y for sure. The price is special occasion-y, no doubt -- $1200 plus taxes -- but if you have a Zeppelin fanatic in your life, someone who has dreamed of boarding one of those beautiful floaty ovals of the sky, then perhaps this is that moment.

We're also tempted by the SF to LA flights on the Airship Ventures site. How might the cliffs of the Central Coast look from the gondola of a Zeppelin? We're pre-swooning. Now all we need is Bill Campbell, in his full retro "Rocketeer" get-up, to serve us bubbly. Chilled. With a fizzy raspberry at the bottom of the glass.