Article originally published by Lake Travis View – Austin on August 16, 2011.
Spirits soar at Lake Travis balloon flight
The celebrities at Mansfield Dam Park on Saturday got the full star treatment.
Looking disheveled from their last party, they unloaded from their rides with fabrics wrinkled as they met the crowds in the early dawn.
Their crews primped them and before long they swelled with hot air, transformed into jaw-dropping glorious color, posed for photos and floated over Lake Travis.
Hot air and gas balloons put on a red carpet-worthy spectacle at the 21st annual Lake Travis flight that inspired awe and flushes of flashbulbs before takeoff.
An increasing number of spectators of all ages has gathered every first Saturday of August for 21 years to send the procession of Central Texas Ballooning Association balloons and pilots over the lake.
The opportunity to see a balloon launch from just a few feet away offers an experience unlike those at most other flights.
“Folks that want to get up at this time of morning to come out and actually see a balloon inflation and launch says a lot about the crowd,” former Association President Robert Doyal said. “It’s something you don’t see every day. They also want their kids to learn more about it. When you hear the burner blast you hear kids scream [in delight].”
Doyal’s fascination with hot air balloons began as a 4-year-old who was instructed not to budge from his grandparents’ farmhouse as he watched these unfamiliar flying objects hover and descend and land in peace.
“From a kid not being allowed to leave the yard while these massive balloons of wonder are landing in my grandparents field to being able to now be involved … is a really good feeling,” said Doyal, a former Austin resident who now lives in Dallas.
Quite frequently, a first-time flyer becomes a lifelong balloon enthusiast.
Caroline Castleberry and Patchen Preston, both of Austin, were drawn to the Lake Travis flight by stories of their friend Phillip MacNutt who has been flying since 1986 and making long-distance flights over Scandinavia, Europe and the Atlantic Ocean.
Castleberry knew she would be flying, but Preston got a last-minute invitation.
“I got the Golden Ticket this time, and he invited me,” said Castleberry who had never seen a hot air balloon before Saturday. “It was exhilarating. I felt like I had butterfly wings on me, there were so many butterflies in my stomach.”
Take off brought out the child in her.
“I probably looked like a 4-year-old — my eyes were half the size of my face,” she said. “There was quite a wind going, so we took off with gusto.”
Once under way, winds carried the eight balloons north over Lake Travis where a flotilla of about 27 powerboats and sailboats greeted them for a splash-and-dash.
Balloonist tradition calls for touching the balloon gondola down any time a pilot crosses a body of water, and many a wave and smile is shared between the air and water pilots.
Sometimes the H2O handshake firmly grips a balloon’s wicker basket.
“As I looked back over my shoulder, I saw him in water up to his neck, basket submerged and him just burning away trying to get up and out of there,” pilot Nick Stanko said of a friend’s recent encounter with lake waters.
The nerve-testing experience is worth it as the water-laden basket pulls free to spill its liquid cargo and rocket upward.
“That’s a thrill, too,” said Stanko, association vice president.
A couple of balloons raced the faster powerboats past the parched Commander’s Point Yacht Basin and Windy Point up to Marshall’s Point before they closed in on higher ground and boats quickly ran out of water.
Stanko used the back-and-forth interaction to make a fly-through order.
“We had one boater pull over and hand us a couple of breakfast tacos as we were scooting along,” he recounted.
The Lake Travis flights are not all fun and games.
Safe landing areas are few, and winds can carry balloons in unpredictable directions.
“We had one part of our flight today where as we got off the lake and went over a ridge we started coming right back the way we had just come from, turned off another direction and eventually climbed back up and went on,” Stanko explained.
The tradeoff is worth the effort.
“Needless to say it’s a gorgeous flight. The sights are fantastic with the woods and trees,” he said.
The Hill Country soon rose up before balloonists who passed over FM 1431 before dodging power lines and light standards to touch down in the Cedar Park area.
Preston described the serenity of his first balloon flight.
“It was like being cradled by the wind. You’re feel like you are being held by a giant hand,” said Preston who was prepared to take photos but got the call to hop in 30 seconds before takeoff.
Renaissance “Renai” Eads, a 21-year-old student pilot from Lakeway who flew the Touchstone Energy Cooperative gas balloon under the direction of aunt and pilot Cheri White, said she was thrilled to participate in a flight minutes away from her house.
“It’s awesome. We’re used to driving a couple of hours, packing everything up and sleeping in hotels,” Eads said. “This is really exciting to just drive down the road.”
Once she’s aloft, the cares of traveling on the ground drift away and she remembers why she embraces the sport.
“It’s so quiet and so peaceful,” said Eads who is the granddaughter of balloonist Sam Edwards of Lakeway. “It’s just a huge family thing. It’s great to be with the people that I love doing something that we all love together.”
