| ALBUQUERQUE'S HIGH:
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 We are indeed part of it. The weak October sun is now laboring over Sandia Mountain and the sky is starting to pink up, glowing like the flames from the propane burners in the balloons around us. The pilots open their valves, the envelopes fill out and, with a final roar from the burners, the first wave of 250 balloons takes off. Two successive waves rapidly follow until all of us are gypsies of the skies engaged in an event first experienced by Joseph Michel Montgolfier and Jacques Etienne in 1783. |
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| There are about 9,000 licensed hot air balloonists
in the United States. Ten hours of flying lessons can cost up to $2,500
and a used balloon might set you back $$4,000 to $25,000. The sport
is not all that expensive though one firing up beside us bears the
name Stairway To Poverty. |
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In an age of jet travel why do we go up in those old-world contraptions? Are we literally basket cases? The pilot who held the high altitude record in an AX5 balloon until recently, Carol Rymer Davis, a Colorado radiologist, says she does it to escape the stress of the doctor's day. Norman K. Cohen, a retired Kentucky allergist, once told me, "Because it's peaceful and exciting to sit on a cloud and watch the world go by." And Clayton Thomas summed it up with: "It gives me a high from within. Once I flew just after a snowstorm and was uplifted. I felt both the world and I had been freshened." |
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IF YOU GO Albuquerque (800-284-2282 abqcvb.org) buzzes with excitement during the 8-day balloon fiesta, always held in October for the near-perfect ballooning weather then. All the hotels have special packages but book early. For someplace different check out the new resort just 15 miles to the north built by the Santa Ana Pueblo on its reservation. No, none of those Route 66 phony wigwams, this is upscale. Hyatt runs it as the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort & Spa (505 867 1234 tamaya.hyatt.com) |
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| The author, a San Diego physician, has a commercial pilot license with land, sea and multi-engine ratings. He has written three books on aviation. His most recent book of stories about his patients in Texas, New Hampshire and California is called The Man Who Cried Orange and is available at www.amazon.com | |
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