When we last left the balloon crew, Seasoned Mentor just declined the invitation for a flight in an Oh, So Casual way...
Mr. Pilot then turns and looks at his crowd. He casually states “DadOfAllTrades, hop in.” My face shoots up at DadOfAllTrades, who is looking at his shoes. Um, hello Dear. He just told you to get on board. Mr. Pilot repeats it and DadOfAllTrades finally gets it. He tells me later that he truly thought Mr. Pilot was talking to someone else, a crew member from last time that shared his name. DadOfAllTrades finally climbs in (Oh, you are talking about ME?!?!) and I hand him the camera. Then Mr. Pilot asks for me. Yesss! I was thinking one-at-a-time, please. But here we go!
I look at the boys. They look horrified. You are taking our parents away?? What about us? But Mrs. Pilot calms them and begins to chatter in a way that only she can do, and they begin to cool off. LegoMaster checks that we know how to use his camera, and we reassure him.
Then we are ascending. My babies are getting smaller and smaller. I hear Buzz yell “Mamma! Bye, Mamma!” I wave wildly. And we are gone. Up in the air. Far away from the ground. The beauty of this is that one cannot hear a sound. It is totally silent. Except of course for a deafening roar of a 1 million btu burner every now and then, but it is so silent I am in awe. I never thought the world could be so quiet. There have been moments of silence in my own home that I relish. Like when the boys are happily playing together using some sort of toy with wheels and all motors are silent, for an instant. Or when both boys have been gotten to school, on time, with happy dispositions and I walk in the door with three hours of possibilities ahead of me. But up in the air, one can hear nothing.
Once reality starts to set in, I can hear a dog bark. Then a lawnmower mowing. It is like my hearing is coming back little by little. I look around and start to put the pieces together. I see the large reservoir, the main water source of a semi large city south of here. I recognize streets. I see the school complex. We float northward and Mr. Pilot points out the home of the gentleman that invented the low energy light bulb. Just huge, like LA movie star huge and it is just down the street from me. Who knew? There are many more swimming pools than I could have ever imagined. If I really scan the ground, I can tell other people are looking up at us and running to get cameras, or fellow family members. That is a nifty feeling! We are bringing people pleasure!
After a few minutes DadOfAllTrades asks what Mr. Pilot is looking for and he answers that he is always in search of a landing site. Balloons are reliant on the winds. It is not as though the pilot can fire up the lateral burners and head to the right when he feels like it. He has to ascend or descend and hope the winds are going to pull him to where he needs to be. The pilots have always studied the weather patterns before they take off, so he has an idea how high he needs to be to go each direction, but still, they are at the mercy of hot and cold air. Mr. Pilot explains that he is watching for things like brush burning in someone’s back yard so that he can see what the smoke is doing. This is absolutely fascinating to me, and I listen as we float over the freeway, hearing honks from the cars below.
Every so often I look down for the boys and wonder what they are doing. If Mrs. Pilot has anything to say about it, they are sitting with the poodle and cramming their faces with cheese sticks and red pepper strips and drinking root beer. What a life!
Mr. Pilot states that he is going to shoot for a golf course up ahead. He says he is going to lower the balloon to see how the wind shear is down below. Just so we are aware, he says that when we left, it was moderate, so the balloon may “speed up”, or cover more ground. Fortunately this doesn’t happen and we casually glide over the treetops. DadOfAllTrades points out that he could touch the tops of the trees and Mr. Pilot says go ahead, you’ll get down faster that way, hehe. I give him the hairy eyeball and he keeps all hands and legs inside the ride.
Landing a balloon is not like landing other aircraft. There is no landing gear that must be deployed. There are no wheels on the bottom of the basket. Our instructions are to hold on to the ropes, face the direction of travel and bend our knees. Mr. Pilot states that we will probably bounce three times before settling down. Bounce? What? It is like being the piñata that just got wacked. The basket hits on one side, the force of the wind on the balloon pulls us back up again, and we whack the ground again. But we rest this time and stay in position to await the chase vehicle. I guess that wasn’t that bad.
Mr. Pilot reminds us not to unboard or the balloon will go “to the stratosphere”. Apparently, it is balanced with our body weight vs it’s hot air. If our over-one-hundred pound body leaves the equation, the balance is upset and it must rise to equilibrium. Science, science everywhere.
I hear a hoot from my left and the rest of the crew comes running through a clearing. Well, just the strong guys. Mrs. Pilot and my boys are still in the chase vehicle. A few steps behind are a father –son team on a large ATV. They are looking on with interest. After the formality of asking for permission to land and bring the chase vehicle on the property, it is determined that we must carry the envelope and the basket roughly 250 feet. While that is not long for a driveway, it is long when carrying something that weighs about the same as a baby elephant.
Here is where Mr. Pilot really starts to sweat. ATV dude and son have offered to use the machine to “carry” what is heavy to the chase truck. Mr. Pilot is not convinced but Funny Friend says “oh, what the heck?” and talks him into it. Really, these balloon contraptions are quite pricy. I have searched on line just ‘cuz I am of the curious sort and here is a site if you are interested also http://www.aerostatz.com/70-80.html. Resting the edge of that basket on the handlebars could be a $40,000 mistake. But everyone is careful and all pieces make it to their home on the trailer. DadOfAllTrades has longer arms from trying to hold all that weight for so long.
Mrs. Pilot readies the post flight beverages. It is a tradition to have a glass of champagne after a flight. This started way back when the first hot air balloons scared the bejesus out of people who had never seen such a contraption. Remember, this is before any flying invention was ever even thought of. Think of standing in your field of lavender and something 100 feet tall with a flame comes out of the sky. The pilots began carrying champagne because no one can resist a glass of alcohol to ease the fear. So, our post flight drinks are about to be poured.
Or so we thought.
We are asked to kneel and they –everyone else- stand in a huddle across from us. The boys drop to their knees immediately. DadOfAllTrades and I squat and wonder. Mrs. Pilot reads the ballooners prayer (I think every occupation has one of these). Everyone grins goofily. DadOfAllTrades glances at Mr. Pilot, who places his thumb over the top of the champagne bottle and starts to shake it. We are about to get wet. Uh-oh. DadOfAllTrades and I think fast and whisper “Put the boys in front of us”. Of course, what better way to drive away from a scene then with children 5 and 6 who smell like a college bar? I burry my head on LegoMasters back and get soaked from the nape of my neck to the small of my back.
“Cowards get it the worst!”, Mr. Pilot states.
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