"Sometimes you get no second chance
and it's best to accept the gifts the world offers you."
-- Paolo Coelho, Eleven Minutes
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| Hot air balloon shadow 8-29-14 |
"Considering the way the world is,
one happy day is almost a miracle."
-- Paolo Coelho, Eleven Minutes
Once-in-a-lifetime experiences come along, well, you know.
So when one does come along, it's best to grab it before it gets away.
Mine almost did.
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| Hot air balloon burner releasing flame 8-29-14 |
Over a year ago, my husband gave me a gift -- a certificate to ride in a hot air balloon. The certificate was good for a year. And then the year was gone and it expired. For a number of reasons -- weather, schedules, my fucked-up mental and emotional health at the time -- we kept putting it off.
We put it off until it was too late.
We put it off so long that our once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was lost.
Except for the fact that I am married to a tenacious man who petitioned the company for a re-do, which they granted, and yesterday, once-in-a-lifetime rolled around again.
This time we grabbed it by the balls. Well, by the balloon.
I was skeptical at first, when they said they were going to cram six people (some of whom obviously hadn't missed many meals) into a wicker basket the size of a bathtub, and then float it 1,500 feet above the ground for an hour.
But as soon as we lifted off, my skepticism melted away with each hot, flaming blast from the propane burners.
Which, by the way, is loud as fuck.
I had this idealistic notion that ballooning would be a quiet, peaceful, sort of silent experience.
Oh, no.
It was like being trapped right next to the mouth of a fire-breathing dragon. A really loud fire-breathing dragon.
I could feel the heat like a blast furnace on the back of my neck and the top of my head as the dragon inhaled and exhaled, so loudly it drowned out all conversation -- so loudly that it spooked horses and deer and cows in the fields and pastures hundreds of feet below us.
And the breathing goes on the whole time. It has to. Because the breathing is what keeps the balloon and its little basket full of people filled with hot air so that the balloon doesn't crash to the ground.
But in between breaths, being lofted up above the earth with a basketful of oddball strangers felt something like a lovely little miracle.
The view was unbelievable. The day was perfect.
My heart and spirit expanded with the warm, full feeling of lucky.
And then we landed.
The flight had lulled me into a reverie and I figured when we touched down, we'd lightly bump up and down and then come gently to rest on terra firma.
Oh, no. Again.
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| Hot air balloons 8-29-14 |
There is also no landing gear.
The balloon just lands when the bottom of the basket hits the ground. And it hits hard.
When it did, the basket tipped forward almost 90 degrees and I seriously thought we were all going to spill out. I fell onto the old lady sitting in front of me, who disregarded our pre-flight instructions and stuck her hands outside the basket to break our fall, as if she could stop a thousand pound moving object.
I thought she was a goner.
My husband grabbed the back of the old lady's jacket and I wrapped my arms around her waist as we bounced a second time. And a third.
One of the very heavy propane tanks tipped up and landed back down on my toe. It hurt.
We skidded and bumped along as the ground crew -- a skinny 60-ish looking guy and a very small 50-ish looking woman -- tried to grab hold and slow our momentum.
Eventually we stopped.
Eventually we stopped.
I felt a little shaken. And a lot relieved.
Which, I think, is the real reason behind drinking champagne at the end of a balloon ride.
The pilot spewed some mumbo jumbo about the history of ballooning and the reasons behind the cork-popping post-flight tradition.
Yada yada.
I didn't drink mine to salute history or tradition. I downed it to settle my nerves.
Yada yada.
I didn't drink mine to salute history or tradition. I downed it to settle my nerves.
But seriously, I also toasted the fact that I'd just experienced something extremely special and rare and unforgettable.
I felt grateful and lucky that once-in-a-lifetime didn't forget about me, but came knocking a second time.
And that this time I answered before it slipped away into the blue.
I felt grateful and lucky that once-in-a-lifetime didn't forget about me, but came knocking a second time.
And that this time I answered before it slipped away into the blue.
