"Takeoffs are optional but landings are required," Nichols said.
Floating through the sky in a hot air balloon is an incredible way to see the Hill Country. Prior to my flight with Heart of Texas Hot Air Balloon Rides, I was filled with anxiety. As someone who hates flying and gets woozy peering out the window of a skyscraper, I wondered what I got myself into as I hopped into the balloon's gondola.
Our pilot, Skip Nichols, who also owns the company, assuaged my fears early on in the flight.
"It'll just feel like an elevator," he said, and I hoped he was right.
Nichols has more than 30 years of flying experience. When he was 15, a hot air balloon landed in his front yard. Intrigued, he helped pack the balloon up and soon became a crewmember.
"The pay was burgers and beers," Nichols laughed.
Nichols was piloting flights by age 17 and flew commercial balloons for years, until he decided the real adventure was in running his own flights. Now, he splits his time between piloting balloons in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Austin-San Antonio area, and is hoping to set up operations in Houston soon.
Nichols flew corporate hot air balloons through college and, as soon as he garnered enough funds to purchase his own balloon, started his own private flight company in St. Louis. He expanded his operation to Texas in 2012, flying out of Austin, San Antonio and the surrounding areas.
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Hot air ballooning is best done around sunrise and sunset. Balloon pilots and crews tirelessly check weather conditions and patterns up until takeoff, and in the digital age, are often armed with phone or tablet applications that keep them abreast of their path and the weather.
We met at 6:30 in the morning, shivering in the darkness before the sun rose at the Wal-Mart parking lot in San Marcos. Nichols and his crew of four men readied the trailer filled with balloon equipment, including a gondola, which looked like an over-grown wicker basket.
Our group piled into the van and we drove to a field off the interstate with plenty of room to launch the balloon.
As the crew inflated the balloon, a giant nylon sack transformed into proper transportation and revealed a yellow smiling face sporting Wayfarer sunglasses, bulging on the side. My anxiety grew along with the balloon, but at this point I refused to allow myself to back out.
I hopped into a quarter section of the basket along with my fellow balloon riders and expected to be too nervous to even peek outside my wicker cradle.
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Hot air ballooning in the Hill Country is no easy feat. Hills, valleys and weather changes keep pilots on their toes. Nichols said that simply deciding whether or not the flight should happen that morning is always the greatest challenge of his job.
"Takeoffs are optional but landings are required," Nichols said.
"There's a point where it's just unsafe. There's been times where I've gotten in this parking lot, where we've had everyone here and had to say, 'You know, it's not safe to fly today.'"
It's clear that Nichols is someone who loves his job. From the first firm handshake he gives you in the parking lot as he and the crew ready the balloon to the champagne toast he leads after the flight has landed, Nichols sports an ear-to-ear grin.
"I get to see the first flight every time I fly through my passengers' eyes," Nichols said. "It's not really a job - it's fun. I started dating this gal, and she asked me, 'What do you do for fun?' I go, 'I work!'"
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Looking back, I laugh at my pre-balloon nervousness. As we left the ground, I was almost immediately overcome with a sense of peacefulness. Balloons are not a rip-roaring, fast-paced romp through the sky. Rather, it's a relaxing float high above the earth.
Cars shrink to matchbox-size, greens and browns of the earth overpower harsh metal colors of our man-made surroundings. Instead of concerned gasps, all I heard from my fellow passengers were "oohs" and "ahs."
I could have travelled through the sky for hours.
The roughest part of a hot air balloon ride is landing. We bent our knees and kept our heads below the edge of the gondola, bracing ourselves as we thudded into the ground again...and again...and again.
We crashed back into reality, it seemed, as quickly as we had floated into a dream world.
For More Information:
Heart of Texas Hot Air Balloon Rides
www.hothotairballoonrides.com
210-201-4959
512-763-2525
