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Have you ever had a flying dream? Hot air ballooning is a little like that. You float above your normal plane of existence just high enough to see your surroundings from a whole new perspective, but different than looking out the window of an airplane, because you still feel like you are part of your surroundings. Our balloon pilot Chris said it is the closest you can get to being a bird. For about an hour we hovered between 2300 feet high and ground level (we actually touched down on the water of the Rio Grande...very cool!) Our pilot had to be mindful of air currents and which way they were blowing to guide our floating basket down to the water and back up again. His twenty-six years of ballooning experience showed. We had to get up at 4:30am to make our 5:30 departure because in the summer it gets too hot to fly in the desert during the day. Not just because it is hot for the passengers, but in order to fly, the temperature inside the balloon has to be hotter than the air temperature, and if the air is already above 100 degrees, than the balloon temperature rises to dangerous levels. But our morning lift off was beautiful as our basket rose with the sun over the Sandia mountains surrounding Albuquerque. The city is much prettier from above as you can see how it is nestled at the base of the mountains with the Rio Grande river flowing through it. From the ground, it just seems flat and dry. Now those of you with some Spanish language skills might be wondering why the mountains are called "watermelon" mountains. When the sun rises over the mountains it creates this reddish hue in the sky and the shadows of Manzano trees along the ridge of the mountains look like the dark seeds of a watermelon against the red sky. Now the elevation and the heat can effect some people, as a passenger from Australia standing right next to us dropped to the floor of the basket like a sack of potatoes. She was fine and said fainting is not uncommon for her, but even our little Anna began feeling a bit woozy. If you want to get the floating experience without the heat and height, check out the videos I posted. For me, it was a great experience...one more thing checked off my bucket list!
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