{"id":18363,"date":"2025-08-05T13:07:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T13:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/balloon-glow-draws-community-to-hear-stories-of-pilots-and-see-balloons\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:03:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:03:30","slug":"balloon-glow-draws-community-to-hear-stories-of-pilots-and-see-balloons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/balloon-glow-draws-community-to-hear-stories-of-pilots-and-see-balloons\/","title":{"rendered":"Balloon Glow draws community to hear stories of pilots and see balloons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hot
Hot air balloon pilots participating in the Cortez Rendezvous Balloon Rally lit light their balloons during Friday night\u2019s Balloon Glow, allowing attendees to see the balloons up close and talk to the pilots. (Aaron Lewis\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

At Friday evening\u2019s Cortez Rendezvous Balloon Rally\u2019s Balloon Glow, hundreds of members of the community came to Parque de Vida to see the balloons and get to know the pilots who fly them.<\/p>\n

By 7 p.m., cars lined both sides of North Mildred Road as attendees of all ages set up camping chairs and laid out blankets in preparation of the balloons kicking off the event. Pilots and their crews set up the baskets and prepared the burners to inflate the balloon. Not long later, the balloons were up and glowing against the sunset backdrop.<\/p>\n

A balloon sponsored by the Cortez Parks Department and CREA offered free tethered balloon rides with Pagosa Adventures on a first-come, first-served basis.<\/p>\n

\"Jesse
Jesse Latham, right, was a community member invited to help set up the hot air balloon for Friday\u2019s Balloon Glow. (Aaron Lewis\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Pilots handed out trading cards that featured their balloon and people walked to the baskets to ask questions about ballooning. Some waited in a line for s\u2019mores, courtesy of the fire from the burners of the Happy Endings balloon.<\/p>\n

Peter Procopio shared about his balloon, the Koshare Gallup. The balloon, which is designed like the Pueblo Indian sacred clown, did not participate in the glow because of the winds. Out of the 21 balloons participating in the weekend\u2019s events, only five or six inflated for the glow.<\/p>\n

\"Colin
Colin DeGattis (right) used the burner of his balloon, Happy Endings, for s\u2019mores at the Balloon Glow. (Aaron Lewis\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Procopio, who is from Gallup, told The<\/em> Journal<\/em> he has been a pilot for 47 years, and he became interested in flying after he saw a hot-air balloon fly over his house one day.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne flew over my house and I followed it,\u201d he said, laughing. \u201cBe careful what you follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The design for the balloon came about after a friend designed a crew shirt with the caricature of the Koshare about 23 years ago. After seeing the shirt, the idea to make it into a balloon was born.<\/p>\n

Though he is 80 years old, Procopio said he doesn\u2019t plan on stopping any time soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll keep doing it until they take the keys away from grandpa,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Others discovered their love for ballooning in different ways. Patrick, from Tucson, shared that his first ride in a hot-air balloon was very early in his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first ride was when I was 18 days old,\u201d he said, adding that his father had been a pilot and his mother also earned her license.<\/p>\n

He began learning to fly at 12 or 13 years old, and took his first solo flight at 14 years old.<\/p>\n

\"Kenny
Kenny Bradley had a full basket for his Saturday morning flight. (Aaron Lewis\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A balloon begins its descent after the morning launch. (Aaron Lewis\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Glenn See, who has been a pilot for 38 years, learned to pilot a balloon because he\u2019d always wanted to fly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in a family who couldn\u2019t afford to fly in a plane, so I thought, \u2018Maybe I could afford to fly in a balloon.\u2019 But it ended up being just as expensive,\u201d See said, laughing.<\/p>\n

See, who is from Albuquerque, said his favorite part of flying is sharing the joy with others.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love seeing the smiles on people\u2019s faces; seeing the children come up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Of course, a hot-air balloon pilot can only do so much without a crew to help them set up and chase the balloon to where it lands. Elsie, a crew member for the Happy Endings balloon under pilot Colin DeGattis, said the crew is like a family.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe camaraderie (is my favorite). We\u2019ve all been a crew together for 20-30 years,\u201d Elsie said.<\/p>\n

Another crew member from Happy Endings told a child waiting for s\u2019mores that DeGattis worked at the post office and ballooning was his hobby on the side.<\/p>\n

While waiting for a s\u2019more, The<\/em> Journal<\/em> asked DeGattis about his time as a pilot. DeGattis shared that he has been a pilot for three years now, but was a member of the crew starting around 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started piloting because our pilot couldn\u2019t do it anymore and I wanted to keep the crew happy,\u201d DeGattis said. \u201cYou don\u2019t want an angry crew.\u201d<\/p>\n

After receiving one of the last s\u2019mores of the evening, the balloon crews slowly began packing up to the light of their headlights in preparation for the morning\u2019s flight.<\/p>\n

\"More
More than 20 balloons participated in the Rendezvous Rally this year. (Aaron Lewis\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The balloons as seen from an airplane. (Aaron Lewis\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

On Saturday, Journal<\/em> photographer Aaron Lewis joined a chase team from Greeley. The chase crew, Robin, Jackie and CJ, followed a balloon flown by their pilot, Kenny Bradley.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey took off from the park and landed the balloon in a field on the corner of County Road N and Mildred Road,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cOnce we got Kenny\u2019s rig packed up and put away we went over to help another crew who landed their balloon in Mildred Estates.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Lewis went up in his father\u2019s plane to follow the balloons and get aerial photos.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe balloons mainly went southwest on Sunday landing at and around the airport,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cSaturday the majority of balloons went north.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"On
On Sunday, many of the balloons landed near the Cortez Municipal Airport. (Aaron Lewis\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

their passion for ballooning with members of the community at the glow<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[364,21,28,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-18363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-community","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20547,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18363\/revisions\/20547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18363"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=18363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}