Up and Away Over Albuquerque

Awesome!  That was my thought this morning as we gently floated over the city of Albuquerque in a hot air balloon.

We have been thinking about this trip for as long as we have been planning to attend the Rally in Albuquerque.  After all, isn’t Albuquerque like the capital of hot air ballooning?  A balloon ride has been on my bucket list for several years.  Today was the day.  Gene is afraid of heights, so I was really excited to learn that our good friends, Tony and Dianna, had made a reservation to ride in the same balloon.

For now, however, we are on our way to the Expo center.  I will continue this story later today.

Later...........

So, for the rest of the balloon story.

Some assembly required

The group flying today (there were about 100 of us) was instructed to meet at the Rainbow Ryders booth at the Balloon Fiesta Park between 5:45 and 6:15 am.  We managed to make it with only one cup of coffee and no breakfast.  We were assigned to group 6 with pilot Troy Bradley.  We learned later, quite by accident, that Troy is a world class balloonist.  He holds 58 world records and has flown across the Atlantic Ocean.  As Tony pointed out, we would have been much more comfortable leaving the relative safety of mother earth if we had had this information beforehand.  Anyway, I was quite impressed with Troy’s flying accomplishments.

Everybody gets to help

Getting serious about inflating

Our group of 8, plus Gene, loaded into the van and headed to the launch field.  It was pretty special to see all that has to be done to get a balloon in the air.  Members of the group helped when possible; I mostly took pictures.  Since there were about a 100 riders, there were about 12 balloons to be launched.  It was thrilling just to be wandering about in the middle of partially inflated balloons.

The time finally came for us to board the basket.  Then, suddenly, we were in the air.  Simply wonderful.  We were up and down, but spent much of the hour and twenty minute flight between 1,000 and 2,000 feet.  When we were high, above the sound of the dogs barking, and when the burner was not engaged, there was hardly any sound, almost totally quiet.  I had the sensation of floating.  There was no rocking and no bumps—just floating.

I-40 westbound

The landing field with the chase car already there

The pilot can control the altitude of the balloon, but has no control over the direction of flight.  We were at the mercy of the wind.  Therefore, we had to pass up the first couple of landing spots we found.  Finally, a large empty field was right in our flight path and that is where we landed.  All hands were needed to stow the balloon in it’s stuff sack before our ride back to Balloon Fiesta Park.

Stuffing the balloon back in its sack

During our flight, Gene was riding in the chase car.  The driver, with his eye on our balloon, kept as close to us as possible.  He was there at the field when we arrived.

It will be a while before we will find an adventure to top this one.

Tomorrow it is rally all day long.