Ballooning --Let Your Spirit Soar

There should be neither profit nor pleasure in any business or sport that starts at 5:30 a.m. Alongside the interstate near Temecula. Outside Denny’s.

“But it has to be now,” explained Don Horst. “When the animals are still out, when people are getting up, when there’s a vibrant energy to the new day.”

He could have spoken technicalities. That warming ambient air reduces temperature differentials until sustained flight in a hot air balloon becomes a steady sink.

But as senior pilot and co-owner of Rainbow Balloons (his wife is junior pilot and equal partner with a better name for this early-bird business: Dawn) Horst knows the intrigue of ballooning has little to do with its physics.

It has everything to do with traditions and human spirit.

The history is rich and commemorates the Montgolfier brothers of France. In 1783, they sent a sacrificial sheep, a duck and a rooster aloft beneath a cotton bag inflated by hot air from a straw bonfire.

The romance is high because of Phileas Fogg and “Around the World in 80 Days” and Dorothy’s escape from Oz.

There’s even a sensuality to the sport, an immersion in total peace, a purity that makes poets from churls through an irresistible mood of pageantry and nonsense.

With some balloonists it is the watching a mass launch and seeing an empty sky fill with flowers. Others claim the essence is being a silent partner of the air, not some noisy adversary.

“We’re not just selling rides, we’re offering the entire experience,” continued Horst. “And doing it so early just separates the non-serious from the serious interested in freeing themselves from the rigmarole of work and cities.”

Horst’s escape costs $115 per person, per hour. He’s been offering it for seven years, seven days a week over the vineyard, wineries and citrus of Temecula Valley.

And so we gathered on a knoll where men of rigmarole and cities are selling ruralism and raising a place called Rancho California.

Irene Ramos and John Grace of Escondido--a balloon ride was her birthday surprise for him. Ed and Lindsay Franco-Ferreira of Leucadia--the ascent was his wedding anniversary surprise for her. We helped spread a nylon envelope, a Cameron balloon from England, that would inflate into an eight-story gum ball of red and blue and gold.

Horst opened its throat with the breeze of a gasoline-powered fan. He fed a 105,000 cubic foot appetite with propane heated air. More than two tons of it. The balloon swelled to partial inflation. Gores bulged tight. The bag lightened to within pounds of buoyancy and then . . . lighter than air.

There was nothing complex about the ride. It was an enthralling ascent into descending silence. Progress was spare and wherever winds cared to shove. Rudderless, there was no concern for passage. So one concedes the dictate, does nothing, relaxes.

It was the Land of Oz down below. A ranch dog pawed and yapped bravely at our drifting shadow. He looked up, saw this monster and ran. And what if life could be an endless drift above rows of grapes and patches of wild squash and stands of prickly pear with their chrome yellow flowers?

Horst recognized the mood: “I like it when its cold and the wind blows in the middle of winter. Everything, the peaks, the lakes, stand out stark and clear. Then you land in the snow and think.”

He made the balloon his sports car contouring low hills until chaparral brushed wicker basket. Then it was an elevator rising more than 2,000 feet above Lake Skinner and the home of Jack Klugman.

Ride’s end brought a ritual.

Dawn and Dan Horst drove their new aeronauts to the Cilurzo Winery.

There was free champagne and a souvenir pin. Audrey Cilurzo had prepared a wine tasting and brunch of marinated artichokes and quiche. There was great talk of the day’s event.

And somewhere between a crisp Sauvignon Blanc and a fruity Cabernet there seemed nothing wrong with starting the day at 5:30 a.m.

Rainbow Balloons, Temecula. (800) 446-6222