Hot Air Ballooning

A DRAMATIC ACCOUNT OF MY HOT AIR BALLOON RIDE AT WOODEN SHOE TULIP FARM IN OREGON.

After driving through what appears to be the Pacific Northwest equivalent of Eastern Shore Virginia, my mom and I arrive at Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm.

It is a beautiful spring day, partly cloudy with a bit of haze- just enough for Mount Hood to peek through in the distance like a cloud, and a breeze blowing through. There are rows and rows of multicolored tulips growing like rainbow-painted buttercream blooms on the farm and I am instantly enamored.

Godzilla himself could shit a waterfall assplosion over the countryside and that still would not stain the beauty of this location. (JD Vance could still absolutely ruin it though.)

We head out of the car and go up the hill to the tulips. We take photos and compliment the beautiful flowers; it is a pleasant moment together. Walking over the gravel, we advance towards the rainbow hot air balloon in the field nearby. My mom informs me that if the rides are $85 or less a person, we are doing it. I express my concerns but have always wanted to say that I’ve been in a hot air balloon before, so we head to the ticket stand despite my hesitation. It is $20 a person to go up in an air balloon for a few minutes. A brilliant rip-off for the business.

My mom buys the tickets and goes to stand in line. I inform her that I need my jacket and collect the car keys to journey back down the hill to grab it. As I get my jacket an old man compliments my New Rock leather flame boots. He is respectful and chill, I hope he gets boots of his own. I put on my queer-as-fuck emo denim jacket full of patches I’ve sewn on and pins I’ve stuck in it as if I were a human voodoo doll and I head back to the hot air balloon line. Joining my mom again, we wait for our turn.

I am equally charmed and concerned by an older woman in our group. She is decked out in an electric green and purple jumpsuit with a lack of teeth and frizzy orange hair like a meth-addled Halloween pimp witch. She sweetly compliments my outfit and expresses that she’s always desired to go in a hot air balloon since she was a little girl. It fills my heart with innocent love and joy that I will be there at least as a spectator while this eccentric lady gets to experience something she always dreamed of.

My own reality hits however as I stare up at the great rainbow hot air balloon.

I have to go up in that thing!? FUCK!!!!!!

We step up to the hot air balloon as the previous group returns to the ground. One person gets off, another gets on, that’s the rule. We file in, Pimp Witch in the front and I round out the back. We smush like fleshy human sardines into the basket and my mom takes her phone out for photo ops.

I don’t feel scared, I don’t feel anxious, I just feel great wonder if my vertigo will hit and send me toppling over to explode into strawberry-jelly-gore in front of the screechy families ambling down the path.

They close the basket and the man beside me lights the fire under the balloon.

The heat scorches my scalp and I realize: TODAY WAS THE WRONG DAY TO PUT HAIRSPRAY IN!!!

Alas, there’s nothing I can do now. Going bald by being fried by a hot air balloon would at least be a conversation starter. I pray to anything that will listen that my bubble-gum pink hair won’t shoot up into flames and send us higher into the sky like Aunt Marge Dursley in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

The man puffs the hot air balloon with more flames as if to taunt my toupee dilemma and my mom mistakes my worry for a fear of heights.

I can’t even process the view.

Pimp Witch behind me is having the goddamn time of her life. I am extremely happy for her. She exclaims “I could be up here all day!” and is living her dream. I cannot relate.

It is nice, up here, admittedly. Beautiful, bouncy, I don’t mind it as much as I thought I would.

But please for the sake of my hair LET ME DOWN!

We bob back down to the field as if my prayers were answered by the Furby Pope himself and I wait my turn to exit the basket. I pat my fluffy head in great relief as we walk back around the beautiful flowers once more, enjoying all of the colors and combinations. I made it. I survived.