A balloon. A river. And, a bosque.

Fall in Albuquerque = hot air balloons. All shapes, sizes and colors can be seen drifting in the 505 morning skies during the months of September and October. I took a flight in one this morning, courtesy of our good friend, Diane Miles. The flight was better than I ever expected it to be.

Courtesy of World Balloon Company, we flew from a west side mesa across the tips of cotton woods in the bosque, down to the Rio Grande and then back west for a mesa landing. Albuquerque is beautiful at ground level; it is even more spectacular from the air. The entire flight was one hour and twenty minutes of bliss.

The crew unpacked the balloon and inflated it with high powered fans.

The burners and the wicker gondola. We had eleven people in the gondola for the flight, pilot included.

The gondola is cunstructed of wicker due to its light weight but also because it flexes during landing.

As the balloon inflated the crew walked inside, preparing it for flight.

Assured that all the rigging and fabric was properly unfolded, the burners were called upon.

As soon as the balloon was righted, we were placed in the gondola, by weight and stature. Diane and I were lucky to get in last. I stood in the corner of the balloon on the opposite end of the gondola from the pilot.

The air stream lifted us quickly and smoothly.
We headed for the bosque along the Rio Grande River. The cottonwoods were brilliant green. The morning sun sparkled through the leaves like diamonds.

The Rio Grande is dangerously low. Although the low water levels made for beautiful pictures of muddy and sandy islands, the complexity of Albuquerque's ongoing drought was painful to see from the sky.