Hot air balloons can fulfill a dream or destiny
By Pierre Ratte
It’s been on the basket list. Part edgy, part dreamy. Floating above Santa Rosa, Windsor and Healdsburg’s vineyards in a hot air balloon while sipping champagne and eating croissants makes a morning magical. Even if one is not in the balloon, there is something “uplifting” about hot air balloons. Morning commutes to Santa Rosa down Hwy 101 are boring unless one happens upon a balloon piloting its way up the valley.
Brightly colored, floating serenely, a hot air balloon lights up the sky and fires up one’s imagination. Wouldn’t it be hot, errrrr cool, to be an aeronaut for a day, or for a few hours on a perfect autumn morning in Sonoma?
Fun Facts: A balloon pilot is called an aeronaut. Baskets on balloons are gondolas, coming from the Italian gondoare, meaning to rock or sway. The first manned balloon rose Oct. 15, 1783, in France. The largest festival of balloons is in Albuquerque. Richard Branson and Per Lindstrand, aeronauts extraordinaire (ouch, pun again), hold records for the first transatlantic crossing and longest solo flight, the latter 6,761 miles from Japan to Canada in 46 hours.
The Aeronauts, released by Amazon Studios in 2019 and starring Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, grossed only $7 million in box office sales on a $40 million budget but became one of the most-streamed original productions. Based on a true story, suffering hypothermia and hypoxia one of the aeronauts climbed the rigging outside of the balloon at 35,000 feet to disentangle a line releasing gas, which ended the ascent. The balloon descended 19,000 feet in 15 minutes before landing safely. Called “Mammoth,” the silk’s capacity was 93,000 cubic feet and stood 60 feet high. It launched and landed Sept. 5, 1862.
Up Up and Away, released by the 5th Dimension in 1967, won four Grammys. Songs like “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” and “Wedding Bell Blues” garnered the group a genre called “sunshine pop” or “champagne soul.” The band sold over 25 million records.
Errata maybe: Last week’s “Snapshot” referred to Hawaii’s Menehune as fairies, which accurately depicts popular folklore. However some theories propose a historical basis of Menehune as Hawaii’s earliest settlers. A Kauai census in 1820 lists 65 people as “Menehune.”
If any of Snapshot’s facts seem off the mark, give me a shout at: pj*****@****ud.com. Hat tip to Steve Pogue on the Menehune.
