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Legal Highs: California Ballooning

© Annette R. Bignami

Ballooning, whether over the Wine Country, Southern California desert or Sierras, gets my vote as the best legal high in the state. No other means of transport offers such a chance to see and photograph so much California geography so enjoyably! You can fly all over the state. Trips float over the Napa-Sonoma Wine Country, around San Jose suburbs, above the rice near Davis, over the swimming pools in Palm Springs or San Diego.

From your quiet vantage point aloft you can hear dogs barking at your balloon's rotund shadow. or birds singing in the trees while your altitude varies from a few feet, almost grape picking through the vines, to 1,500 feet or more, constantly changing your perspective as the wind currents change your course. Then, after your early morning flight, you enjoy a champagne brunch and other diversions you will treasure for years.

Why not make your next birthday or anniversary even more special? We did, we rose early to meet the other members of our Napa Valley Balloons, Inc. party at 6 a.m. in Yountville, a center for Napa Valley hot air ballooning. After sorting party members into two separate flights for each of our balloons, we packed in vans for the short trip to the Old Soldiers Home parking lot, the departure point for our first.

Note: the first flight of the day is usually the smoothest as the air is cool and still. Its only drawback is you can't take photos of your own balloon taking off and landing. So you might want to leave a spare camera with the ground support crew.

After the balloon's nylon bags unrolled, a careful preflight followed. Three massive liquid gas cylinders were loaded into the gondola. Only two cylinders are used in the morning's flights. The third provides a safety backup. Then a powerful portable fan partially inflated the bag and a careful check made for tears or other problems. This testing is most reassuring for the first-time "balloonaut."

Once the brightly colored bag bulges off the ground, the propane heater held on cables above the gondola fires off with a deep roar. Then, slowly, the bag fills and rises overhead. Passengers clamber aboard over the gondola's high wicker sides to provide needed ballast until liftoff. Wicker, the traditional basket material, still offers a unique combination of strength, light weight and flexibility.

With a tight hold on the cables, it's time to watch other balloons that sprout like Technicolor mushrooms then silently rise in the still morning air. The only noise added to dawn's bird calls is the periodic roar of the propane burner that warms the bag's air to carry you aloft. Then, very gently the ground drops away and you're off. The Soldiers Home recedes into the distance as you soar over green vineyards towards Napa and San Pablo Bay in the distance.

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