It takes a bit of courage to climb over the side of a basket and put your life in the hands of a balloon pilot. I almost didn’t make it in time that morning — the first morning of the White Mountains Balloon Festival. I was invited by Tony Alba, Community Services Manager for the Town of Pinetop-Lakeside, as media, to come and take a ride. I had no idea what to expect and, to be honest, wasn’t sure I wanted to go — which might be the reason I set my alarm clock to 5 p.m. instead of 5 a.m. I didn’t wake up until 5:30 a.m. and I wasn’t sure I could get ready in time for the 6:15 a.m. scheduled meeting — it was a miracle but I did. When I reached the Mountain Meadow Sports Complex, I walked around taking pictures of the balloons stretched out on the ground in preparation for flight until Tony sent me over to the “Hearts Afire” Balloon and they told me to climb aboard (along with podcaster Rob Heffner) and we were the first balloon to lift off. I now believe that the feeling of lifting up and away in a hot-air balloon is one of the best feelings in the world.

“There are two very non-scientific and best applicable methods they have in ballooning,” Rice told me. “Before we fly, we let a helium balloon — a fly ball — up in the air that will mimic what the bigger balloon is going to do.” While Rice is up in the air, he tries to get to different altitudes and find different wind patterns at different altitudes. “Sometimes, you can look at the ground and search for flags, trees and anything else on the ground that gives you an indication of where the wind is going,” he explained. “You can also look at other balloons at different altitudes and see where they are going.” The other non-scientific, most accurate depiction of what the wind is going to do when you go down is spitting over the side of the basket. “Spit will actually follow the exact wind pattern,” Rice says, “and, in this day and age, believe it or not, it is the most accurate indication we have.”

Most of the time, we are traveling with the wind and you cannot feel much motion. “The only time you will feel the wind is when we are going through a different wind pattern,” Rice says. I’m told you could put a Kleenex on the side of the basket and you won’t see it move when you are drifting with the wind. According to Rice’s MotionX-GPS app, we travel at an average speed of 3.7 miles-per-hour (mph) with a maximum speed of 11.1 mph. Our average pace is 16 feet, 24 inches per mile at a minimum altitude of 6,600 feet and a maximum altitude of 7,000 feet. We float above a seemingly windless and glassy Rainbow Lake, scaring a multitude of waterfowl and a few horses on shore with every blast of flame and heat that is shot into the balloon. Then Rice lowers the balloon to water level and tells us, “Pilots can lose their depth perception in the air and what a professional balloon pilot would call a ‘splash and dash,’ (on a lake) with inexperienced pilots, they call it a ‘plunk and dunk.’” He assures us that the basket floats and re-assures us that he is experienced — with about 500 flights under his belt. “It’s a different flight every time,” he adds. “Especially when I haven’t previously flown in an area.” — like the White Mountains which he described as “just beautiful.”

Rice’s Chase Team is comprised of his wife, Jessica, two sons, Jacob and Jackson and a volunteer named Amber Irwin. We see their bright red truck as it follows us along the roads below us in anticipation of our landing. “Chase Teams are a real important part of this whole deal,” Rice said. “Having crews on the ground to offer support in case something goes wrong or if a balloon pilot wants to set it down or needs something, is critical and a huge safety measure.”

His sons are following in their father’s footsteps just as Rice followed in his father’s footsteps. “My dad got his first balloon when I was a six-year-old,” he told me, “and sold it when I was 14 — the same time I had gotten my student pilot’s license.” When he got out of college, he decided to pick up the sport again. Now his sons are, pardon the pun, learning the ropes.

There are three ropes inside the basket — a green one, a black one and a red one. The red one pulls the top out of the balloon and allows hot air to escape faster than its normal dissipation rate and the green and black ropes are turning vents that allow him to turn the balloon in one direction or another. “When I fly balloons,” Rice stated, “Mother Nature is in charge, I’m not. I am just controlling the balloon and she is controlling where I am going. Once she starts speaking to you, you can take sides with her.”

We reach a field where Rice decided we are going to land and he lowered the balloon. He is in contact with his wife below who is still following us. The wind is picking up and making it slightly difficult to touch ground. We fly through two groups of trees on our descent, which I’m told slows us down and then hit the ground the first time — the impact knocks me to my knees. Because the wind has a different plan for us, we rise up once again and then Rice found another spot and then hits the ground. Again, I am knocked to my knees but this time, the basket tips sideways and we have landed so I can climb out. “Any landing that you walk away from,” Rice told us, “is a good landing.”

Once the Chase Crew arrives through an open gate in the field, we start folding up the balloon and packing it in its bag. They load up the balloon and the basket into the back of the pickup and we drive back to where it all started — Mountain Meadow Sports Complex. There are other balloonists who have made it back and we newbie balloon riders discover that there is an initiation ceremony that we must participate in. Rice laid a blanket on the ground where we were told to kneel — with glasses of champagne on the ground in front of us. He tells us that there is a long-lived ballooning tradition because champagne was a very important asset to balloonists. It seems that, back in the early days of ballooning, it saved their lives and their balloons when they could offer a toast of champagne to the owners of the fields where they would land. So, we listened to the story and then Rice recited the Balloonist’s Prayer and then told us to drink up the champagne (or mimosa/orange juice) without using our hands. As we lowered our heads, he christened us with the remaining champagne — which I learned later is very good for your hair.

As I drove away from this incredible experience I had just taken part in, the words of the prayer kept playing through my head and I thought about how surreal it had all been.