~from Ami
Really, there are only 40 balloons, I'm just thinking of that song this morning as forty hot air balloons float up against the sunrise and drift across the Arkansas River to flirt with Tulsa's tallest skyscrapers.

Friday's Tulsa World clearly says "Balloonists will not be giving rides to the public," but here I am anyway, camera swinging from my hip, ever hopeful. I want pictures of flames shooting into the envelopes, I want to hear the roar and hiss of the giant balloons. More than anything, I want to ride.

7:00am in West Tulsa. I woke at 5:45 on a Saturday just to see the balloons up close. Row boats slide by on the river like water bugs skimming across the surface. Throngs of runners pound the asphalt path that hugs the bank. The grounds are already littered with blankets and baby strollers and little kids with rabbit ear hats, courtesy of the Energizer Bunny Balloon crew. The Energizer balloon must be four stories high once it's inflated. Thirty feet away I can feel the heat radiating from its bright pink envelope.

You may be asking why I'm here. Always, my answers travel back to what I'm working on. I'm writing a sequel to "Next of Kin" and have written a character,inexplicably, into two scenes that simply must take place in a hot air balloon at a county fair. A kidnapping in a hot air balloon, no less. I've never even seen one in person, until this morning.

7:20am. Do I hear the man in the Allstate balloon correctly? The gondola is settling back on solid ground, bobbing up again until the crew grabs for the basket with gloved hands. Someone is yelling for riders. Is there a single rider? Me! Pick me! I sign a two page release, swearing on my mother's grave that I don't have heart-related issues and I've been to the doctor at least once in the past year and I and my heirs absolutely will not hold Allstate Insurance responsible should I plunge from the gondola and meet my untimely demise in the murky Arkansas River.

7:30am. Morning light is cutting into the haze as the balloon lifts effortlessly into the air. Tulsa's downtown buildings reflect rays of sunshine as if through a filter of light smog. Steam or smoke curls from the large cylindrical containers of refineries to the southwest. And the serpentine river winds south under I-44. Little children are waving at me and I snap pictures. I look up and take a photo as the sweating balloon operator pulls a lever and sends flames shooting into the 75-foot envelope. We sway gently in the breeze. The balloon operator jokes and says he's never really flown before, he just spent last night in a Holiday Inn Express. Very funny. He says the wind blows in different directions at different altitudes as we drift east toward the river. Other hot air balloons are silhouetted against the sherbet-colored sun, hundreds of feet up. I feel like a bubble rising through water.

I've driven 114 miles round trip, paid $5 in parking and filled the Toyota with gas. I'd do it all over again tomorrow!

Now, I'm ready to write that scene.