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Tahoe Family Guy: It takes a village in the high desert |
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Written by Andrew Cristancho/Tahoe World - View Profile
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Monday, 17 September 2007 |
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Car trips have become a bit of a hassle in our family.
My daughter always seems to want to take a baby with her wherever she goes — not a real baby — a stuffed animal baby. Sometimes my daughter wants to take quite a few babies, like a backpack full. I’m serious: boo-bear, blue bear and polar bear aren’t enough and sometimes three to five others must be shoved in a bag before we leave on a trip.
On a recent trip to Northern Nevada’s annual Great Reno Balloon Race, not really a race as much as a hot air balloon float fest, we brought a myriad of babies.
On this trip though the babies became a secondary concern when we were almost denied a balloon ride. It was then that I found the value of striking up a conversation with other parents when it comes to the happiness of children.
By about 7:30 a.m. at the races, an event that draws 130,000 people annually to Reno’s Rancho San Rafael Park, there were scores of hot air balloons flying simultaneously with people milling about everywhere.
The people, like the floating aircraft, came in all shapes and sizes. Sounds cliché, but to prove it I’ll tell you about a shape that I saw:
A young dad watching, with his two children, a giant cow being filled with hot air, was wearing a bright red T-shirt that his belly filled out rather like a balloon itself. The slogan on the front of the shirt said ‘fat people are harder to kidnap’ the back said ‘PETA: people for eating of tasty animals.’
I saw skinny people too but none of them were wearing quite as interesting T-shirts — perhaps a commentary on how serious skinny people take themselves. There were no skinny balloons on display.
Anyway back to how parents are hardwired to help other parents.
 This being the great balloon race we wanted a great balloon ride. Last year when we attended the races we paid the people that own the Re/Max Realty hot air balloon a fee so our daughter could go up in a plain looking balloon with the company’s name plastered on it; a bit of free advertising I thought. To be fair though they donate the $5 fees to charity.
Last year we had heard a rumor of free rides on more exciting looking balloons and this year we found them.
After 8 a.m. a line of people formed in a lower field, all of them waiting for rides on one of two exciting balloon shapes — either a giant octopus or a 41-foot frog. My little girl was excited until we found out, from the woman tending the line, that all of the tickets had been given away. A local charitable foundation helps to provide these tethered five-minute rides to children, but apparently, at this time of morning, you needed a ticket — a sort of V.I.P. system that I have yet to sort out.
Instead of walking away dejected, I decided to start a conversation with a woman in line. I was trying to figure out how I might line up tickets for next year, thinking that since it was past 9 a.m., we were headed back home to Tahoe, but I wanted to find out how to be successful next time we came.
Tracy, mother of two, told me that the tickets and the early rides on the amphibious Hopper-T-Frog and Sea Fantasy were tied in with participating in a daycare in Reno. I asked if I should go by the day care and offer a donation for next year’s tickets? She smiled and just handed me a ticket with a picture of the 41-foot amphibian, his 35-foot smile stretched across his enormous face. I asked if she wasn’t giving away something vital. She said her kids had tickets.
Well my little girl was back in the saddle, or rather the basket attached to the lower half of the crowned toad. She and my wife who had both been looking at me uncertainly the whole time started smiling again because they knew the balloon ride would be a reality this year.
Then a really nice feeling washed over me. I felt like I was part of a community — a community of parents that want to help each other make their children happy. Nothing could go wrong after that, and it didn’t, even if I did have to carry an impossibly big baby, Goldy Bear, in my pack for the rest of the quickly warming high-desert morning.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 17 September 2007 )
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