If you want to feel cheerful...

Some time ago I watched a delightful program on PBS, on the Balloon Fiesta at Albuquerque, New Mexico. Occurring every October, it's the largest hot air balloon festival in the world, with 600 balloons allowed (according to Wikipedia a cap of 750 was imposed in 2001, after an all-time high of over 1000 in 2000; in 2009 the cap was lowered to 600.)

Watching the program, I was reminded of the time I attended the Fiesta with my brother Jeremiah, who has lived an hour away from Albuquerque, in Santa Fe, for many years. My husband Micheal and I also went to a balloon festival at Lewiston, here in Maine, a few years back; and when I was staying with my sister Ellen in Colorado Springs, in 2005, we went to one there.

There is nothing like a bunch of hot air balloons to take your mind off your problems, and the problems of the world. You watch all these big, floppy, colorful pieces of fabric begin to bulge, wriggle on the ground, determinedly take shape, as the hot air is pumped into them. There are always a lot of people helping; it takes a team to get one of these things into the air, to track them once they are there, to retrieve them. And then finally the envelope, as, for some reason, they call the top part (why not call it the balloon?) is full, has risen majestically from lying on the ground to hovering in the air -- the people who will be riding are clamoring into the basket -- the other members of the team are holding onto the thing, to keep it from taking off before it's time -- and then they let go, it lifts off, and everyone who's standing nearby claps and cheers. Since there are lots of balloons there is lots of clapping and cheering. And then those of us left on the ground get to ooh and ahh as we watch the sky fill up with these huge, imaginative, often very playful, often quite beautiful examples of this, the oldest method human beings devised to satisfy their desire to fly. It's all just a totally positive experience.

I've ridden in a balloon once. When Jeremiah came to visit me when I was living in Alaska, I decided to treat him to a hot air balloon ride for his birthday. Mind you, this was something I had long wanted to do myself, but I was pretty sure he would dig it, too. Which he did, although given his height, and his thinning hair, he found the frequent blasts of hot air directly over his head a might uncomfor-table, and in fact came away with a slight "sunburn" on the top of his head.

For my part, I was surprised to find that traveling by balloon was not as exciting as I had expected it to be. I love to fly -- or did in the days before it became a major pain in the ass -- but I found balloon travel was more like walking at a stately pace through the sky, than like flying. It was pleasant, rather than exciting. But I'm glad I did it. I reckon it's something everyone should do, like riding a donkey up a cliff on a Greek island. Both, interesting experiences.