Heart & Soul

We struggled out of bed at 4:30 a.m., sleepy-eyed, grumbling and hungry. The early-morning Albuquerque air was surprisingly chilly. I’ve always wanted to go hot air ballooning—and I consider myself fairly fearless—but watching the crew fill the balloons with air as the sky turns a pale pink, I started to question my impulsive decision to climb aboard a wicker basket and set sail. It’s big, but it’s still. A. Wicker. Basket. “Will I become airsick,” I wondered, “as I did the first time I flew in a two-seat Cessna with a novice pilot?”

We’d been off the ground fully 10 seconds, fumbling with cameras and tweeting about the activities, before anyone in the group even realized we’d set sail. It turns out hot air ballooning is like floating, but it’s virtually motionless! Brooke Owen, our pilot (rainbowryders.com), schooled us on how to steer and the reasons why ballooning is a morning event. We sank low over petroglyphs, the prehistoric images of animals, crosses, symbols and people etched into the stones of the mesa thousands of years ago. We flew high and saw the volcanoes in the distance that border Albuquerque (another mile-high city; who knew?). And we watched the sun—rosy-pale, then fiery orange, finally brilliantly golden—make its ascent over the watermelon-colored Sandia Mountain range.

I tried, to no avail, to figure a way to bottle the calmness of the flight and bring it home to inhale on stressful days. But my failure is OK; I know now that going up, up and away—even at 5 a.m.—is my solution for a too-crowded, overwhelmed life.

Kendra Lee is Heart & Soul’s executive editor.

Win a trip to the 39th Annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, October 2-10, 2010.