After a balloon chase, flying high

The first e-mail popped into my mailbox a full month in advance. Cool! Our hot-air balloon crew was Brazilian.

"Hello dear friend: Thank you very much for your interest in being part of our crew. We need to be ready on October 4 at 7 a.m. See you there! Caco and Guto."

Hey, it was we who'd be thanking them. I was on a chase crew about 20 years ago, before kids. Now my partner, Patrick, and two of our kids -- his oldest, Henry, 9, and my youngest, Carly, 10 -- wanted to give balloon chasing a try. It's an adrenaline-inducing rush that allows neophytes a chance to participate in every aspect of the launch: unloading the equipment, inflating the balloon, assisting in pulling it down by a fat, rough tether line. I grew up in Albuquerque, N.M., when the International Balloon Fiesta was a small affair held at the State Fairgrounds six blocks from my house. In the mornings, my parents, two brothers and I stepped onto our back porch as a few dozen multicolored marvels whooshed overhead like a gas burner turned up 1,000 times. When the festival later moved to a grassy, 72-acre field in the scenic North Valley to accommodate visitors from around the world, my friends and I drove in the dark, ate fry bread as we huddled to stay warm, then screeched as hundreds of extraordinary balloons headed skyward.

Last fall, I realized that I'd be returning to Albuquerque for a meeting the week the 2008 fiesta opened. That's all the nudging I needed. I signed us up and recruited my childhood friend, Pia Gallegos, and her three kids. We flew in a day early to attend the orientation.

Traffic jams and hungry kids

The big day began at 4:45 a.m. Patrick and I dragged the sleepy kids into the car and set out silently across town, passing brightly colored Mexican restaurants, car repair shops and adobe homes surrounded by desert landscape. About a mile from the site, my stomach turned. Lines of cars inched -- less than inched -- forward. We still had a full hour and a half until launch time.

Time flew. Our car didn't. The kids were getting hot. And hungry. And, oh God, I forgot to charge my cell phone. This balloon couldn't leave without us! The kids and I jumped out of the car. Somehow, we'd find Patrick after he parked.

"Um, yeah. We found them," Pia said cautiously. "But they're ... not going up ... because they don't have the propane. They don't have the propane, so they're going up tomorrow."

Nearly 800 balloons and we got the team that forgot propane? I called Patrick to update him (cleverly hanging up before he could react), letting him know the kids were with Pia at the Darth Vader balloon. Then I ran to the crew volunteer booth, breathlessly shouting something like: "Our balloon! No propane! All the way from Minnesota! Our kids will be so disappointed! Shoot me now!"

The kindly couple behind the desk wanted to help. But the balloons were already launching in tiers, coming to life hundreds at a time. "The best you can do," the woman said, "is walk around and talk yourself onto another chase crew."

Safe landing

I turned. Not 20 feet away I saw my target: His name was Jim Faron and, I quickly and delightedly learned, his close friends, Dave and Kathy Reineke of Champaign, Ill., were about to take up a vibrantly colored balloon called "Sunsational" that, at the moment, was still laying deflated on the ground. And, it turns out, he had room for four more chasers in the van.

We jumped out and ran toward the balloon, but we didn't quite get there in time to help. Oh, well. The landing was safe, the sun was warm, the sky gloriously blue. The crowd was boisterous and grateful. Still, nobody was more grateful than I.

We loaded into the van, making room for the Reinekes, and returned to the fiesta site where we formed a circle. Dave opened a bottle of champagne, poured it for all the adults, and recited the Balloonists' Prayer:

The Winds have welcomed you with softness.

The Sun has blessed you with his warm hands.

You have flown so high and so well, that God has joined you in your laughter.

Then our happy little group headed off to find breakfast.