By DAVID ROSS
It takes a lot to lift me off the ground. A 60 foot high nylon bag inflated with a hot propane blower, to be exact.
Ross and a hot air balloon. But I repeat myself.
Sunday morning early, I mean real early, I was able to soar high above Valley Center, with nothing between me and the ground 2,000 feet below but a wicker basket. It is possible that the wicker still bears the imprints of my fingernails.
Joining me in the air, although I did not know it at the time, was Cathy Kleiman, our intrepid sports photographer.
We were part of a fleet, (or perhaps a flock), of about a dozen hot air balloons, whose owners are all members of the Southern California Balloon Assn.
They were holding their first ever monthly event in Valley Center.
The local organizers and hosts of the affair were John & Irene Washburn of Pauma Valley, where the participants met later in the day for a “tailgate” party.
The day began before dawn when the balloonists gathered in Old Town Center for a pre-flight briefing.
Washburn, who is also a director-at-large with the ballooning association, oriented the flyers on a map of Valley Center.
One member asked what potential hazards there were.
“We don’t know. We’ve never flown here before.”
“Oh good!” murmured his interlocutor.
“This is balloon virgin territory,” said Washburn. “I think it’s going to be a great place to fly.”
Washburn talked about the terrain and the best places to land. He noted the weather, and that the wind was almost nonexistent.
It was, in short, almost perfect ballooning weather.
Balloonists typically fly in the early morning and at dusk, when winds are at their most benign.
Each balloonist towed a trailer that contained all of their gear, including wicker basket and the balloon itself, which is usually made from nylon.
Ballooning is a fairly expensive hobby, on the order of owning a boat. An entry level used balloon might cost $8,000. From there the costs can soar as high as $40,000 or more for newer, sexier models.
Balloonists must have pilot’s licenses, just like airplane pilots.
The association was allowed to take off from the eight acre farm of John Barnett, just off Cool Valley Ranch Road.
I was invited to fly in “Distraction” owned by Dan & Wendy Walsh of Redlands. Their balloon is named “Distraction” because, they say, they needed something to keep them from working all the time.
Other balloons had names like “Fyr Blue,” owned by the Washburns, and “Gypsy Drifter,” owned by a professional balloon pilot named David Ball and his wife, Lauren. When he’s not flying for fun, Ball pilots passenger balloons in Temecula.
As soon as the balloonists arrive at their launch site, they start unloading their equipment.
Even though the sun was just peeking over the hills, the activity gathered onlookers.
From nearby Bell Gardens Farm came the farm’s Director of Operations, David Karle. Despite being in a wheelchair, Karle said he was quite anxious to fly sometime.
They couldn’t accommodate him that morning, but said that there are balloons equipped to take wheelchairs. This looked like the beginning of a beautiful friendship, possibly involving Bell Gardens with a planned balloon fund-raising event.
The balloons must be spread out on the ground like a tent and then held onto tightly by several people as a fan blows air into them to partially inflate them.
Then the propane flame blower kicks in and the balloon starts to grow on the land like a giant flower. Then, with its owners hanging on tightly it rights itself, until it towers over you, filling your sky with bright, primary colors.
I hopped into the basket. If you’ve ever imagined an elephant gymnast, you have a pretty good idea what this looked like.
A balloon take-off is as gentle as blowing on a feather and sending it aloft. Suddenly you are airborne like a dandelion ball and the treetops are below you.
Dan Walsh piloted the Distraction while his wife stayed on the ground to follow him in their car to our landing site.
In the basket with us was the Washburns’ 8 year old granddaughter, Amanda and Denise, another first-time balloonist.
We rose slowly and the landscape unfolded under us.
The only sound was the occasional blast of the heater, followed by utter quiet. Since a balloon rides on the wind, there’s very little noise. However, sound does carry well from below, and even a thousand feet in the air, we could hear the traffic from Cole Grade Road below us, as well as dogs reacting to the strange creatures in the sky.
It was a warm morning, but the balloon provided shade. From our vantage we could see other balloons above and below us. Distances are deceiving and you have to remember that everything is relative. A ballon may look like its sinking rapidly, when it’s actually your balloon rising!
It’s an amazing thing to see things like the high school, the library and the elementary school complex slipping slowly under you. You also see things that you never knew existed, even though you might have driven by them a hundred times.
Balloons are captives to the currents of the firmament. They move with the wind, but the pilot controls where he lands because he can choose his altitude.
We passed over several potential landing sites.
“That looks inviting,” said Dan, pointing to the field next to the library. But the wind didn’t take us that way.
Instead, it took us down Cole Grade Road, toward Valley Center Road.
Then we began to veer east, and Dan spotted a field where alfalfa had recently been harvested.
As we came down lower and lower, we could see all sorts of animals scurrying away.
“Run rabbit, run!” exclaimed the little girl as we passed over 20 feet or so above the ground.
Dan had warned earlier to bend our knees just before landing, to absorb the impact.
The impact, when it came, was a jarring, followed by dragging, and then another jarring impact, and then stillness. The entire flight had taken about an hour.
We had to stay in the basket until the balloon began to deflate, helped along by people pushing against it.
“How does it deflate so quickly?” I asked. “Does it have a hole in the top?”
“Didn’t you know that?” he replied with a grin.
Dan’s wife, Wendy, arrived with their truck and trailer and they began to pack up the balloon.
Soon Gypsy Drifter approached, and it too landed without incident.
As David Ball approached the Walshes, Dan Walsh asked, “Did you think this is an excellent place to fly or an excellent place to fly?”
“It is awesome,” agreed Ball. “It’s like a box. Lots of places to land and beautiful scenery.”
“And the landowners were wonderful,” agreed another pilot.
* * *
The balloonists have a prayer: “The winds have welcomed you with softness. The sun has blessed you with its warm hands. You have flown so high and so well, that God has joined you in your laughter, and set you gently back again into the loving arms of Mother Earth.”
The VC fire board at a special meeting July 24 voted to call for proposals to provide paramedic services to a wide-ranging area that includes Valley Center, Pauma Valley, Hidden Meadows and the Backcountry out to Lake Henshaw and north to Riverside.
The current provider for this service, Sycuan Ambulance, notified the district last month that it was pulling out when the current two year contract ends in October.
Meanwhile, a delegation from Valley Center, including directors Mike Pacheco, Stan Johnson, district administrator Joy Justis and Chief Kevin O’Leary, was scheduled to meet with other interested parties on Tuesday at the County’s Emergency Medical Services office.
Those parties will include Alan Black of the California Dept. of Forestry & Fire Protection (CDF), Deer Springs Fire Chief Richard Bolton, San Pasqual Reservation Fire Chief Howard Maxcy, Palomar Mountain Volunteer Fire Dept. Chief Karl Bauer, Yuima Water District Gen. Mgr. Susan Collins, Deer Springs and fire board director Bob Winge.
Selection process for screening the proposals will, as before, be conducted by a committee whose members’ names are kept secret from the public.
It is possible that Sycuan Ambulance will continue to provide the paramedic service on a month by month basis until VCFPD can find a replacement.
Sycuan says it can’t make enough money from providing service for the entire area because not enough calls come from the Henshaw area. Henshaw is one of three areas where they are required to maintain an ambulance at the ready. VC and Hidden Meadows are the others.
The County pays Valley Center Fire Protection District $68,000 annually to oversee the service and provides one of the ambulances. It won’t pay the $68,000 subsidy unless the entire service area is covered.
Although Sycuan says it can’t make enough money off all three ambulances, Chief O’Leary told his board that he believes a contractor can serve that area and still make money.
By DAVID ROSS
The VC Parks & Rec. board July 24 voted unanimously to seek an election to annex certain areas adjacent to the parks district that use its services but aren’t within the district.
These areas, vaguely defined at the moment, but totaling about 11,000 acres, include the Paradise Mountain area, which has within it the Skyline Ranch Mobile Home Park, and islands of land to the northwest, northeast and southwest of the parks district.
Some of the roads that cross these territories include Paradise Mountain Road, Couser Way, Couser Canyon Road and Sunrise View Road.
The vote on Thursday authorized Gen. Mgr. Joyce Johnson to send an application for annexation to LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission), the board that has jurisdiction over all changes of district boundaries in the state.
A successful annexation will cost the district $15,000 but could bring much more than that into the district in the form of property taxes. The district will get one tenth of one cent of every dollar in property tax collected.
Also, the district last year narrowly lost an election where it asked voters to authorize a benefit fee. Mrs. Johnson believes that the Paradise Mountain area, in particular, has many people who would have voted for that measure if they had been part of the district.
Director Tom Bumgardner said the district should ask to annex as much territory as possible since LAFCO will charge one time for the election.
He suggested including the reservations within the district boundaries because they use park facilities.
Mrs. Johnson said that is not possible since the reservations are sovereign Indian nations outside of the jurisdiction of the County.
The VC water board Monday approved a new policy for dealing with waste disposal systems that have elements of a sewer and a septic system.
This will allow the district to deal with a proposal by the developers of the proposed Village Square @ Valley Center to serve its shopping center and condominium development with a cross between a sewer and a septic system.
The vote was a follow up to a presentation in June, when Weston Valley Center LLC, which includes partners Irving Schaffer, Herb Schaffer and John Askar, first introduced the idea of a hybrid sewer system to the board.
The new policy establishes guidelines for the district owning, operating and assuming regulatory responsibility of subsurface sewerage disposal systems.
Under the adopted rules, the proponent of such a system would pay to provide an operator for the first five years of the systems operation.
And, most critical from the point of view of District Gen. Mgr. Gary Arant, is the provision for setting up a community services district that would be able to levy fees that would guarantee that the sewage system would pay for itself, without picking the pockets of district ratepayers.
That money will be able to be collected in advance of the system being built, said Arant.
“It’s a self-contained operation. The money to operate it would come from those properties. The developer will provide an anticipated budget and then the district will levy a fee ahead of time so that money is in the bank as the expenditures come up,” he said.
“We want at least a five year period to see how the system operates," he added.
Regulatory agencies such as the County Dept. of Health and the State’s Water Quality Control Board insist that such a system be operated by a public agency. That way, if the system needs to be replaced or improved, there will be a public entity to do that.
“We’ve looked at this for two months and I think we’ve covered all the bases,” Arant told the board.
Herb Schaffer told the board he was happy with the policy.
“I reviewed the policy and had some discussions with Gary, and I would like to say that they seem very well-prepared and satisfy our needs. A lot needs to be worked out in the developer agreement, but I feel very confident that it will work.”
Adopting the policy doesn’t guarantee that the district will ultimately agree to the developer’s proposal. But now there’s a basis on which to discuss that.
“Now we can actually talk about their specific project,” said Arant. “We will look at what they are proposing. This is the policy that allows us to deal with this type of project.”
The Valley Roadrunner
P.O.B. 1529, Valley Center, CA 92082
Tel. 760.749.1112 Fax 760.749.1688
Website: www.valleycenter.com
Email: editor@valleycenter.com
Copyright © 2002, Palomar Community Newspapers, dba Valley Roadrunner. All rights reserved. This content may not be archived, retransmitted, saved in a database, or used for any commercial purpose without the express written permission of the Valley Roadrunner.