High River from a Hot Air Balloon

My heart is thundering in my ears and my hands fumble over my camera as we lift effortlessly off the ground and ascend.  The whoosh of the fire billows into the hot air balloon.  It is wonderfully, blissfully silent.

The absence of sound and the feeling of weightlessness is so sudden, I feel like we walked into a sound proof, anti-gravity room.  I thought this would be terrifying.  I love to travel, but airplanes scare the crap out of me.  I am the crazy lady screaming, “We’re all going to die!” from the back of the plane during the tinniest bit of turbulence.

This is different somehow, and that in itself is absurd.  There are no seatbelts in a hot air balloon basket.  There are not really any safety rules per se.  Stan Wereschuk, the pilot, goes over a few items to avoid touching, and what to do if the landing is shaky.  That’s pretty much it.

I wrap my arm around one of the uprights to have a more stable brace for taking photos.  That seems to help my mind accept that I’m safe.  But a bizarre thought occurs to me:  It would be so easy to just swing my legs over the edge and jump.  It’s not that I want to, but in my adrenaline fueled mind the thought keeps popping up.

That crazy, illogical speculation disappears as I begin to survey all that is below me.  It is spectacular.  There is so much to look at it’s hard to concentrate on one object or area for more than a few seconds.  High River in the fall is stunning from the air.  Half a dozen balloons prepare for take off, growing slowly like colorful warm buns rising in an oven.  Trees line almost every street, their golden leaves ablaze like the fire above me.  The town still sleeps peacefully, basking in the cool autumn morning sun.  Other than the balloon enthusiasts, there is no sign of the busy town I see everyday.

As we go higher, the recreation complex, businesses, schools and residential streets begin to shrink, creating a miniature version of the town. 

Hot air balloons are slaves to the wind, and so we drift, with Stan’s 40-plus years of piloting expertise, southeast.  High River isn’t large, but there is still so much to see in so little time.  Emerson and Sunshine Lakes appear like sparkling pools.  The little red barn and the locally named Superman house stand apart in a field of their own to the north.

When I finally take a moment to look at the horizon to the west, the Highwood River, which has been so ferocious and yet given my family and I more happy memories than sad, snakes and sparkles it’s way west.  The Cottonwood trees mark its path over the patchwork quilt prairies and undulating foothills.  In the distance, the Rocky Mountains stretch like a bookend, as far as I can see.  It’s breathtaking. 

My little town sits perfectly nestled on the very edge of the prairies, close to the foothills and mountains, along a beautiful river.  I am lucky to have called this place home for almost 20 years.

The town begins to recede as we move out over the eastern prairies and I tear my eyes away from the western horizon and listen as Stan talks more to himself than to me, about being too close to a line of intimidating steel power polls.  I let him worry about it though, as I am immersed once again in the view.  An ancient coulee gashes its way southeast, looking like an earthquake fault lies just beneath.  I point my camera out and over the basket to the earth immediately below us.  There are designs of every kind, a photographer’s dream.  Farmers have been busy during the fall harvest, their tracks creating lines and diagonals and shapes and patterns of every kind.  I am lost in composition and creation, until Stan says it’s time to land.  We descend slowly.  The bumpy landing I envisioned never happens.  In fact, we come down so gently; we are within one meter of the ground almost hovering.  But Stan isn’t happy with the lay of the land, and we glide like an astronaut on the moon, feet above the earth.  We land once, but lift off when Stan finds a better place.  It is the closest I’ve ever come to feeling weightless, suspended in the air for a few brief moments. 

Finally and regretfully, we land so gently I hardly notice when we stop moving.  We wait in the basket until Stan’s crew arrives.  I’m sad it’s over.  I hold my cameras tightly, like precious treasure.  I will never forget the memory of this once-in-a-lifetime flight.