A Sunday morning experience

A brave aeronaut maintains a deathgrip on the basket. (Gloria Masoner/McCook Daily Gazette)

I went to my first hot air balloon rally 30 years ago, and I've never passed up a chance to attend one ever since.

But that didn't make any difference Sunday.

This time, it was me climbing into the basket.

Thanks to scheduling conflicts and Saturday night's scrub, my wife, Candy, was able to join me for a Sunday morning flight as well.

I've always watched the preparations with an off-handed curiosity, sec-retly desperate to go along.

Once, I was even so lucky as to climb in for a tether ride, but being attached to the ground by a rope just isn't the same.

Tom Peterson was our pilot for the day, and when I later found out that he is the president of the Nebraska Balloon Club, I wasn't surprised.

No passengers have ever listened more intently while their pilot read through the pre-flight check list, detailing what was supposed to be done when, and, more importantly, what not to do.

Darn, and I had big plans for that cell phone call.

"Hey, Dad, guess where I am!"

But the FCC has rules about that, and we complied.

I doubt I could have handled a phone, anyway. The tiny digital camera I carried along took about all the coordination I could muster.

"How ya doin'?" Tom asked as we began climbing out, north of the McCook airport.

"Kinda shaky," I replied, truthfully. In fact, my palms are starting to sweat as I type my memories into this column.

"It's the adrenaline," he explained, knowingly.

But the shakes passed quickly as we began drifting over the countryside, in gorgeous hues of gold, brown and green under a soft, hazy clear skies. Luckily for fellow balloonists, I was just able to refrain from bursting into song, the introduction to "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" from "Oklahoma!"

"Goood mooorning, coows," Tom called to a small herd, walking a well-worn trail to morning feed and water. His first instructor was convinced, he explained, that balloonists could keep cattle calmer by carrying on conversations.

John Kugler's pre-flight briefing carefully pointed out feedlots and other concentrations of animals that might be disturbed by large, colorful apparitions, giving off occasional massive roars of propane-fueled conflagration.

Tom checked the recorded flight information from the McCook airport, adjusting our altimeter to make sure we were a thousand feet above the dairies when we couldn't avoid them otherwise.

But I was amazed at the amount of wildlife we could see and hear from our nominally silent perch in the wicker basket of the "Dreamtime."

Dozens of deer, pheasants -- was that a pronghorn? Looked like one to us. Tom did a passable imitation of a meadowlark.

Lower winds were angling us toward an inviting, harvested stubble field landing spot, but our pilot dutifully climbed out of them to avoid a small bunch of Angus. When we descended again, the favorable breeze had disappeared.

"This is going to be a little rougher than I said," Tom explained as we aimed at a road.

Dropping over some power lines, we came down in a borrow pit, and the crown of the road was enough to tip our basket onto its side as we crossed the road.

With a brief reminder to keep our arms inside and stay in the basket until enough hot air was gone to keep us on the ground, we were gathering up the colorful fabric. A lost GPS receiver beeped forlornly, until we discovered its strap peeking out from beneath one of the propane tanks, where it became trapped while the basket was on its side.

The landing was just exciting enough to make our story better. My slightly scraped knee and slightly sore shoulder are happy reminders that, yes, I really did go for a balloon ride.

Thanks, everybody, who made this year's Freedom Flight possible.

And thanks, Tom, for a great ride. It was an experience we'll remember forever.