When a Facebook friend posted about floating above Africa’s Massai Mara in a hot air balloon, it evoked memories.
I know this woman from my former caregivers support group, which I attended for years as my wife, Cheryl, descended into dementia. The woman was caring for her husband at home. He died before Cheryl did, and she has a new travel friend.
However, this story isn’t another one about Alzheimer’s. Instead, like a rising hot air balloon, this one soared in our beautiful, adventurous years predating Cheryl’s dementia symptoms.
It’s a story filled with disappointment, agony, and—eventually—a once-in-a-lifetime thrill, as I wrote in a feature story for The Janesville Gazette.
Around 2004, Cheryl and I left our Janesville, Wisconsin, home in darkness and drove an hour west for Monroe’s annual balloon rally. Shortly after dawn, we marveled at the colorful spectacle as balloons of all shapes, sizes, and colors lifted off from the Green County Fairgrounds and filled the bright blue sky. If only we could enjoy such a ride.
In the summer of 2006, weeks before Cheryl’s 60th birthday, I planned to make that happen. As a surprise gift, I invested $422 in two tickets to fly with A Great American Balloon Co. The company offered rides out of Token Creek and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, as well as sites in Illinois, Arizona, and Las Vegas.
Supposedly, we had an 18-month window for scheduling our ride. However, weather kept cancelling our trip. Winds usually were the problem; ballooning requires the gentlest of breezes. Twice we ran into problems with wet fields, when the company didn’t want to risk the wrath of farmers who own the land where the balloon might touch down.
“Safety is our No. 1 priority, and Mother Nature reigns supreme,” preflight information told us.
We appreciated that. We’d signed a liability waiver. In June 2006, a woman was hospitalized and four others injured when changing wind conditions near Wausau caused a balloon to descend quickly, and the basket tipped upon landing
On July 6, 2007, we called the prerecorded message to hear that our sunrise flight, on our third try, was a go. We drove in darkness to the rendezvous spot, the balloon port’s office in Token Creek, a burg outside of Sun Prairie. There, we met other customers, including a couple who drove two hours from Manitowoc.
Then, a woman pulled up in a car, got out and walked toward us, head down.
“Don’t kill the messenger,” she said.
The pilot, she explained, had flown out of Lake Geneva the previous and towing the balloon trailer with a new van when the vehicle broke down on the Interstate. Our flight was canceled.
Though the tickets were nonrefundable, I tried getting our money back at the end of that 2007 season—after six straight cancellations. “Have someone call me back about a refund,” I told a young female clerk who answered the phone.
No one returned my call.
In 2008, I kept rescheduling after each new cancellation. That September, remnants of Hurricane Ike swirled through the Midwest. No go that time, either.
In 2009, for attempt No. 13, we tried changing our luck by switching to the Lake Geneva location. Weekend storms thwarted that flight.
Finally, that Labor Day weekend, we learned that our Saturday ride was a go. Cheryl was a month shy of three years older than when she “received” my surprise gift,
At 7:25 a.m. on a calm, bluebird morning, south of the runway at the Waunakee Airport, a balloon rose into the sky and with it lifted 35 months of frustration for Cheryl and me.
As the big balloon bathed in blue, red, purple, orange, and yellow ascended, we waved goodbye to the friends and family watching and wishing us a safe and exciting journey. Our craft’s large shadow faded and shriveled as we rose hundreds of feet in the early-morning sunshine.
I glanced at Cheryl, who feared heights. Tears welled in her eyes, and one rolled down her cheek.
“What’s wrong? Are you nervous?”
No, she replied. Instead, they were tears of joy coming from the thrill of realizing a dream that was so long in coming.
Rather than fearful, we were amazed at how comfortable we felt. The basket, big enough to carry 14 people, was solid, sturdy, and didn’t rock. At times, I leaned as far over as I could to photograph scenes below us.
Yet ironically, the winds that wreaked havoc on our hopes for so long, on this day created a different problem. The air was so calm that we barely moved move once we’d climbed hundreds of feet.
Still, we relished the shades of green in farm fields far below. We marveled at the huge homes, many with backyard pools, in modern Waunakee subdivisions. On a curvy hiking trail, we spotted a someone—a man or woman, the moving dot was so tiny we couldn’t tell—out for a dog walk.
Every farm looked orderly, the buildings well maintained, as we rose close to 2,000 feet.
Most striking was the utter quiet. Only when someone spoke or the pilot pumped more hot air into the balloon with a “whoosh” did we hear anything at all.
Unfortunately, what little breeze there was shortchanged our trip. We edged toward massive Lake Mendota. Not wanting to test our swimming abilities, and concerned that we might land in wetlands where the balloon and basket would be difficult to retrieve, the pilot thought it best to put down in a soybean field just 45 minutes after we took off. The company aimed for flights of an hour but made no guarantees.
Back on the ground, Cheryl told me, “It was way too short. I could have done that all morning.”
While safety was the company’s top priority, service tumbled far down the ladder. Even determining our rendezvous spot for that morning’s ride triggered confusing, and some riders on the morning’s list never arrived. While we enjoyed the post-ride champagne and snacks, the chase crew was supposed to shoot photos of us with the balloon. Instead, riders shot photos for each other while the crew deflated the balloon. Also, we were supposed to get a “personalized flight certificate.” I don’t recall receiving one.
It should be no surprise, then, that the company soon went bankrupt. A report by Madison TV station WISC said those still awaiting rides should fill out forms and hope for refunds.
Aero-news.net cited an anonymous source who suggested the company engaged in the practice of selling ride certificates and refusing to honor them. That lent credibility to my suspicions about that “van breakdown” on the way from Lake Geneva. I suspected the company had only one pilot flying out of both Wisconsin locations.
Was our ride worth all the hassles? “If it’s any consolation,” Cheryl told me the next day, “I’m glad you didn’t get your money back.”
After Cheryl moved to Agrace Hospice in late February 2024, I found the photos from our ride and shared them with her when she seemed alert. I paused when my high school buddy Dave called as he and his wife, Kathy, headed to visit their grandkids in Illinois. I told them about the photos, and Dave said he’d be scared to go on one with Kathy, fearing she’d pitch him overboard.
“Well, knowing you, I’d be scared, too,” I said.
We laughed, as always, even at grim times.
Cheryl died the next day.
We took a hot air balloon ride in San Diego years ago before health issues changed our lives. It was wonderful. We saw an owl’s nest with owlets in it. We took tons of pictures. The only problem was that one of us forgot to put film in the camera. Oops.
Glad you finally got to go.
Happy you helped fulfill that dream of hers, despite the lack of quality customer service.