Saturday, June 15, Angel Fire, NM
Debbie, Ashley, and I woke up early on the 15th in order to get over to the airport for the 6:15 a.m. pilots’ briefing. We were disappointed the previous day that wind came in and scrubbed plans for the balloons to fly, so we were pretty anxious that Saturday would be a better day. We weren’t disappointed when it was announced that the light winds were going to hold. With sunrise temps in the low 40’s., it seemed colder to me than it did the day before, even though it was actually warmer.
Our friend and balloon pilot, Morghan Chando, is known for being one of the first in the air, so we tagged along as his crew got his balloon out and ready to set up. Debbie got a big surprise when he asked her to help while they used a big fan to start getting his balloon inflated. You’d have thought that her face was going to crack from the huge smile she had as she got in there and helped. Ashley and I hung around and took pictures for posterity.
Morghan had some sponsors that were to be his passengers for the day, so Debbie and Ashley didn’t actually get to fly on Saturday, but we got to be really up close and personal as his balloon, along with 39 others were stood up and launched. Once they were all in the air and moving away from the field, we decided to grab some breakfast and take the chair lift to the top of the ski mountain. We took a short hike at the summit, mostly following the disc golf course. It was actually quite chilly up there and it began to rain a little, but there was also thunder in the area. We decided to catch the lift back down the mountain, but were told that they’d shut the mountain down and that we’d be taking a 30 minute, extremely bumpy, mini-bus ride back down. Once down, we made another drive back up to Red River where we had expected to meet up with Morghan, only to find that they had already returned to Angel Fire. But, we did end up eating dinner with Morghan and Nick, one of his crew. They were supposed to have a mass glow at 9:00, whee everyone would stand up their balloon and light them up with there flames. Mother Nature didn’t want to cooperate and the rain that had moved in early in the day returned and scrubbed that event.
Sunday, June 15, Angel Fire, NM
At dinner on Saturday night, Morghan had told Debbie and Ashley that he was going to do his best to get them a ride on Sunday morning, so you can imagine the excitement around our place on Sunday morning. We again met over at the airport for the 6:15 a.m. briefing. The temperature was in the upper 30’s, but there wasn’t a breath of wind. In fact, the two pilot balloons or “pi-balls”, small helium filled balloons that are released to show how the wind is moving at different altitudes, went almost straight up, showing practically no movement away from the launch point until they had disappeared out of sight. With that, the launch order was given and the crowd of 40 balloon pilots and crews started getting their equipment set up. During the briefing, Morghan told Debbie and Ashley that they would indeed be flying with him, so off we went to help him get set up.
Once again Debbie helped with the inflation process and the balloon was stood up with Morghan in the basket at the burner controls. Ashley was the first passenger to climb aboard and Debbie followed closely behind. Those two were so excited and happy that they were going aloft! After a short safety briefing in the basket, and a couple of blasts from the burners, up and away they went. I did my best to take pictures and video of it all. They spent a little over 45 minutes moving up and down among all of the other balloons that were also launching. Since there was so little wind, most of the balloons stayed fairly close to the airport and their close proximity to one another made for some really nice pictures. Unfortunately, our plans to leave Angel Fire were already behind schedule, so I passed on a chance for a short hop myself and Morghan told me that we’d get it done the next time.
With that, we rushed back to the campground and packed everything up and headed out on an eight hour drive to Carlsbad, NM where we intend to visit the caverns on Monday.
LyndDebTravel 