by Diane Kay
I'm not quite sure if this story is true or not. It has become something like a folk tale in the telling and retelling of it. Of the three characters in this adventure, the pilot, whom I will call "Joe," says that it never happened. The passenger, whom I will call "Mike" claims that it did. And the snake, of course, is not talking. So you will have to draw your own conclusions.
It happened one summer day in the high desert mesa west of Albuquerque, New Mexico. At dawn the sky was peaceful and golden, in contrast to Joe and his crew as they began the inflation of his formidable black balloon. The envelope matched the clothing of his crew, which was predominately made up of the remnants of a motorcycle gang. How they got into ballooning, I will never know, but on this particular morning they were decked out in Harley Davidson shirts and black leather accessories. Mike, who bore a passing resemblance to ZZ Top, held the throat of the balloon open while being careful not to let his flowing hair and beard get too close to the inflator fan.
The roar of the burners made the dark, sleepy envelope snap to attention. As it stood up, Joe tied off the crown line and ordered Mike into the basket. Then Joe began his standard preflight passenger briefing.
"When we get ready to land, you need to face the direction of travel, hold on and bend your knees. If it is windy, you will need to get down in the bottom of the basket for protection. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ARE YOU TO EXIT THE BASKET UNLESS THE BALLOON HAS COMPLETELY STOPPED AND I SAY IT IS OK TO GET OUT."
Mike had heard this all before, but nodded in agreement. The black balloon rose up into the sky eclipsing the sun as the crew wandered back toward the chase vehicle.
The flight lasted about an hour. Joe watched for signs of changes in the wind and noted that it had started to increase in velocity at the surface. As he came down to land, he was thankful that they had decided to fly out on the mesa where the landscape was mostly unobstructed by powerlines and other trappings of humanity. Just miles and miles of desert.
Approaching ground level, the wind speed was rising to meet them, and the crew was nowhere in sight. Joe prepared for a rip-out landing by ground tracking as he shut off the propane tanks and checked to see that Mike was down low in the basket. Pulling the red line and vent lines together opened the top to its maximum capability, as Joe joined his passenger on the floor.
What occurred next took a matter of seconds, but seemed to be in slow motion as Joe and Mike experienced it. The basket hit the ground with a drag-step bounce and fell sideways. The envelope continued to pull the basket along for quite a ways, causing the basket to act like a scoop. It gathered up an abundance of dirt, pebbles, and sagebrush, dumping them on the grinning occupants of the basket.
All of a sudden, the basket scooped up a rattlesnake. The two men in black looked at the poisonous snake and the snake looked at the huge angels of death that had invaded its home. All three of them screamed in their own way and tried to put distance between themselves.
Now picture this. The balloon is still moving along the desert floor at a fast clip. The two men know that if they leave the basket, the balloon may fly off out of control, but neither of them wants to stick around to get cozy with the rattlesnake.
Joe is the first one to make a move. He gets to his feet and steps out, putting a foot on each of the uprights which are sliding along parallel to the ground. He is still gripping the red line as he rides the poles like water skis. This is not good for the structure of the balloon, but still preferable to getting snakebit in the middle of nowhere.
Next, Mike grabs the top edge of the basket and does a crazy kind of backwards somersault, flipping himself over to ride on top of the upper exterior of the wicker, rather than inside the basket. Both are still maintaining weight on the balloon, while the only passenger inside the basket is the stunned rattlesnake.
At last the balloon comes to a stop and Joe and Mike are off like a shot to squeeze the balloon. After tending to the envelope, the tough guys in black fall on the bag, laughing to hide the fact that they are both still a little shaky from fright. Out of the corner of their eyes, they are watching the empty basket for signs of movement. But the terrified snake has long since departed the premises by slithering out through the step hole and escaping into the bushes. He headed for home at top speed.
Eventually, the crew shows up. Several visits to the cooler calm their nerves enough to inspect the basket. Finding it snakeless, the humans also head for home.
It makes me wonder, who had the better story to tell. Would it be the men who rode with the snake? Or would it be the snake who had a balloon adventure? I guess we'll never know for sure. All I know is that I have been ballooning on that same mesa for about 5 years and I have never seen any snakes. Maybe the word has spread among the snake community to be on the lookout for balloonists.
