My Suburban Escapes

The madness which overtakes me each Fall is astounding, a crazy rush of adrenaline I can hardly control, like seasonal middle-aged crazy.  I imagine it akin to that burst of life one has before shuffling off the mortal coil, autumn closing in and all that. It’s driven, of course, by the fact that it’s almost over. Winter IS coming. Trees will be stripped naked and cold winds will blow. The beauty that comes just before the darkness is the most exquisite beauty of all. I try to catch it however possible, hold it in my hands, put it in a bottle to take off the shelf in February. I chase it by land (One) and by sea (Two). It’s anyone’s guess where it may lead me. One year I’ll follow it all the way down, Vermont to Louisiana, like an Allman Brothers groupie. But for now I’m content to see all the colors I can on all the trees I can for as long as I can. This year I found taking to the air (Three?) to be quite effective

“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth

with your eyes turned skywards,

for there you have been and there you will long to return.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

My first attempt was hang gliding. Seemed logical. And it was incredible. I just hadn’t realized I’d be circling one spot like a tether ball, so the focus was on flight rather than foliage.  The law of physics doesn’t allow cruising across the countryside, duh.  You climb in your cocoon to dangle over the back of the pilot in his cocoon in the glider rack, wings above you. You’re attached by rope to a small tow plane which takes you up about 2,000 feet, cuts the umbilical cord and leaves you alone to make big lazy circles in the sky like a hawk, bumping over thermals, until you find yourself back on terra firma right where you took off. That first free fall left me breathless, but I quickly adapted to bird’s life. Manhattan was but a Lego village in the distant haze.  Bang for buck, this is the bomb. 

Next I took a page out of my Dad’s playbook, as all good daughters should, and found a helicopter. He got the notion in his late 50s that helicopter was the shortest distance between two points, so he bought one and learned to fly it.  It was the quickest way he could chase hunting seasons in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. In his Delta drawl he’d say, “Hell I can get me a limit by the crack then get a ten point by sunset…and watch the Rebs play in between.” (Translation: he could successfully shoot the number of ducks allowed in the state of Mississippi by sunrise, catch some of the Ole Miss football game on tv, fly to Texas and shoot a male deer with large antlers by day’s end.)  He’d hop in that thing in full camo with his face painted black (it’s imperative to hide your face from these wily creatures, don’t ya know) and off he’d go.   His is an exquisite mania of which I apparently suffer a titch. He was right of course. I saw miles and miles of color as we rolled from Westchester Airport over to the Hudson River, up to West Point and back down to the GW Bridge.  The patchwork quilt of Cranberry Lake Preserve, the Croton Reservoir, Rockefeller State Park, Blue Mountain Reservation and Fahnestock Park unfurled, with the Hudson Highlands as backdrop for a perfect sunset.  You really have no idea how much open land surrounds us until you see it closely from above. And most of it is parkland, available for exploration. Fear not: we in Rye are well insulated by green space.

The piece de resistance was hot air balloon. In fact, I may be hooked. Balloon is the closest you stay to earth when in flight, literally grazing treetops at times. I love an adventure beginning with “meet behind the Spain Inn on Hwy 173:” intrigue and possible danger mingling with the possibility of paella (which I pre-ordered before we flew). The team arrived as if on military op cue:  two other passengers (girlfriend surprising boyfriend on his birthday), the pilot, his wife and another fellow pilot. We all hopped in their black Suburban hauling the trailer outfitted with the balloon gear and off we went to the launch, a field surrounded by barns and corn mazes. We passengers got to be part of the process: unloading, unfurling, inflating until it was time to jump in as quickly as possible before liftoff, exactly like in The Wizard of Oz. Then shhhhhhhhh and WHOOOOOOOOSH for about an hour as we slowly drifted upward and outward. Two amazing facts: balloon pilots have no ability to steer left or right, only up and down as controlled by heating the balloon with the propane fire. Wherever the winds blow, there too blow you. Also, pilots don’t know where they will land until they get there. A ground crew (wife and fellow pilot) follows you via radio contact. We landed in someone’s yard and hung out until they arrived: dogs barking, goats bleating and neighbors comin’ round. Two takeaways (almost as good as my paella) by which to live: Go with the wind, and don’t worry about where you’re going ‘til you get there. 

Glide: Middletown, NY. www.hangar3.net. Thomas20A@aol.com. 917.270.5669

Chopper: Westchester County Airport.  www.wingsair.net. 914.800.6471.

Balloon:  Asbury, NJ. In Flight Balloon Adventures. www.balloonnj.com. 908.763.5178   

You too can do these things! Or tag along with me on Instagram at My Suburban Adventures and http://www.mysuburbanadventures.com.