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Readington, New Jersey
I'm gonna free fall out into nothing, I'm gonna leave this world for a while
Look up in the sky! It’s a hot air balloon!
At Solberg Airport, about 45 minutes south for me, is the annual QuikChek Festival of Ballooning, which is pretty self explanatory, even though that’s not going to stop me from explaining and explaining and explaining it again and again and again.
The balloon festival is more than just balloons, but everything else pales in comparison. There are booths and booths lined up on the hot, hot paved runway (summer at Solberg Airport can be dreadful), as well as all sorts if distractions from live bands to skydivers. But the real action happens on the field when they start inflating the balloons and things kind of get a little magical.
Balloons are apparently super finicky, and they won’t launch unless the weather is just about perfect. But when they do launch, it makes waiting and dealing with everything else there worth it.
And when they launch, the speakers blast “Up Up and Away (In My Beautiful Balloon),” a song by the Fifth Dimension and a real reminder that this country has not produced a good balloon song in over 30 years. Come on songwriters, what are you waiting for?
Our local pictures continue in Coney Island where, after all these years, I finally rode the Cyclone. I live roller coasters but did not love the Cyclone, a rough, rough ride all around, although I do understand why people may really like it. For a small coaster, it has a real kick and a lot of surprises.
And while I probably would ride it again in the future, I have no plans to and am kind of thinking now that maybe once in a lifetime is enough.
From Brooklyn, we’re now headed upstate to Storm King Art Center, a terrific sculpture park that is more park than sculptures. What I mean is that many of the sculptures are nice, but it’s the park like setting that really makes them shine. Even this one, Schunnemunk Fork by Richard Serra, is more about the site than itself.
We’re finishing up the 1999 Weekend Trips Slideshow with an early Spring hike at the Delaware Water Gap, specifically the Mount Tammany Trail, which starts along a beautiful stream on the Appalachian Trail before turning and heading up the boring side of the mountain.
Mount Tammany is on the New Jersey side of the Delaware Water Gap, and across the Delaware is Mount Minsi and Pennsylvania. Mount Minsi is shorter, but has much better viewpoints along the trail, big rocky areas with unobstructed views of the gap. On the Mount Tammany side, you’re mostly among the trees until the very end, when a view finally opens up and all that uphill hiking feels worth it.
