Listening to the Disclaimer

We made it!

Pain! Pain! More Champagne!

I am in Arizona for a business conference at the Butte Resort just outside Phoenix when a couple of my more adventuresome colleagues and I decide to go hot-air ballooning. So, at the crack of dawn — no small feat after the prior evening's festivities — three of us (one chickened out) begin our journey. A van picks us up at the hotel and takes us about an hour out of town to the balloon launching site, where at least of dozen of the huge, colorful dirigibles are already preparing for launch.

The ballooning company staff manages to jam twelve of us into a wicker basket just big enough for six, and with a fiery blast of the furnace, we're off. I am amazed at the speed and grace with which the balloon moves through the air and with the absolute lack of any feeling of height. We glide over the desert at varying altitudes, sometimes skimming the tops of the trees and once climbing to a height of almost 6,000 feet. It is a windy morning, and our pilot is trying to seek slower moving air in order to give us a longer ride. We are heading toward Phoenix, and no matter how brief a trip, we must land prior to reaching the outskirts of town or risk landing on somebody's roof.

As we near the city, we begin our descent, but as we descend we enter a layer of swifter currents, propelling us toward civilization at what is becoming an alarming rate of speed. After overshooting our first three chosen landing sites, the city looms before us. We have one final chance before joining some unsuspecting family for brunch. At our pilot's direction, we assume crash positions and brace for landing.

As my son, who is a big fan of Winnie the Pooh, would say, "It is a very blustery day!" When we finally "touch" down, we hit the ground so hard that we bounce about thirty feet back up into the air, causing the pilot to re-ignite the furnace in a futile attempt to prevent us from crashing down a second time. We bounce three more times before staying down, but our forward momentum is far from exhausted, and the vibrantly colorful balloon which has carried us gracefully above the terrain has become a great and powerful spinnaker to drag us through it.

Before finally coming to rest a mere hundred yards or so before the first houses, we are dragged over five hundred feet, through a tree, which we topple, and across a concrete culvert, which we shatter. The basket, which fell onto its side early on, is filled with passengers covered with the desert itself, including every form of flora in the area except—thankfully—cactus. Our utterly unflappable pilot, who has been flying balloons for over eighteen years, simply says, "Well. I guess that's one for the record books." He also reminds us in a semi-humorous way that we all signed liability wavers before starting out.

Before long the chase vans arrive with our well-earned champagne and unnecessary breakfast. Perhaps it's the champagne, but despite several sore muscles patterned with bruises and cuts, I would take to the sky in a hot-air balloon again in a minute. It was truly one of my most memorable experiences.