… in a beautiful balloon!
Frank and I love hot air ballooning, and find it tough to resist a flight when one is available. We’ve ballooned in France, Egypt, California and Maryland and considered owning a balloon at one point. However, it’s sad, but ballooning always involves waking up when it’s still dark out, and driving through the dark to a remote location in the middle of nowhere. Not a real fit for us.
When the sun began to rise, the balloon and basket were offloaded, and as the balloon rose from the desert floor, the sun lit the mountains and we clambered rather gracelessly into the basket, with a family of four and our intrepid pilot, Johnny.
Johnny has been flying most of his life. In high school he built his own airplane from cardboard, plywood, wagon wheels and a tractor engine. Towed by his brother, it flew until he was unable to untie the lariats with which he had tied it to the tractor. It crashed, nose first. He flew, so he considered it a success. Johnny saw his first balloon the next year in the movie Around the World in 80 Days, and decided to buy material and sew his own. When he started college, he signed up for Home Ec, the only boy in the class, and with money his father sent for books and lab fees bought the materials he needed. He enlisted the help of his fellow Home Ec students to sew the balloon, and his science professors determined how large the balloon had to be to keep a person aloft. When it was finished, he fastened the balloon to a large metal hoop, and used a farm burner to fill it with hot air. As it rose in the air, he grabbed the ring and pulled himself up. It was his first balloon flight; he has now logged more than 8000 flights, ballooning all over the world. He was the first balloonist in Egypt, hired by NBC to carry the cameras needed to map and photograph the Valley of the Kings. While there, he was besieged by people who wanted to ride the balloon, starting the commercial balloon industry in the country. Quite a remarkable guy.
Our flight was not too exciting. Balloon pilots want calm days with little wind. Flight weather service OK’d our take-off, but there was too little wind, and we didn’t cover much ground. Johnny let Frank handle the controls, blasting flames up into the balloon to make it rise and fall. Because we were in an area with arroyos, gulches, cactus and trees, it was difficult to coordinate a landing site with the ground crew. However, the landing was probably the best we’ve had, smooth and gentle.
Ground crew chief Jeannie prepared a wonderful assortment of snacks and drinks, including biscochitis, New Mexico’s state cookie. Didn’t know states had cookies…! We did a post-flight toast with mimosas. Donning an apron, Jeannie was definitely our classiest hostess ever!
In the afternoon we checked out Santa Fe’s Museum Hill, first visiting the amazing International Museum of Folk Art, with dioramas, doll houses, miniatures and toys from around the world. There were special exhibits on Amish quilts (!), Japanese kites, yerba mate and chocolate. A fascinating video showed the harvesting and processing of yerba mate, a member of the holly family. The chocolate exhibit had an even more engrossing video, which left us desperate to find chocolate quickly!
We had lunch at the Museum Café, then were off to the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. One highlight was a 1980s video of Maria Martinez demonstrating the making and firing of her black pottery at San Ildefonso Pueblo. No photos were allowed in this museum.
Next stop: the Plaza, for the tail end of the Labor Day Weekend Native American Crafts Fair. We stopped at a few shops, and then checked out the lobby of La Fonda, the historic hotel just off the Plaza.
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