This true story won Christine and I a wonderful dinner from Cubic at the Brigantine Restaurant
My girlfriend Christine had no idea what I had planned for Valentine’s Day. We started heading to our mystery date north on I-5.As we crested the hill after Del Mar Heights, a clunking noise began in my engine, sounding like a wet shoe in a drier. The noise abruptly stopped and we looked back to see a black object bouncing down the freeway. The temperature gauge on my car began to skyrocket. Christine frantically suggested we pull off at the nearest gas station and call for help to possibly salvage the date. Instead, I limped off the freeway at Villa de la Valle into the Chevy’s parking lot, assessed the damage, declared the date plans ruined, and insisted on grabbing a beer in Chevy’s to drown our sorrows. Christine desperately tried to convince me of any number of scenarios that might still salvage our mystery date. I was not to be convinced.
After a tall, cold beer, we exited Chevy’s and encountered a group of loiterers outside. A man approached us and asked if we were here for the balloon ride. Christine turned to me with questions in her eyes, and I just shrugged my shoulders, smiled, and said "Sure." Without blinking, the man said, "Okay, sign your name here.' While my date ducked inside to use the facilities before departing, I handily took care of the bill. We were whisked away to the launch site while Christine wondered at the serendipitous turn of events, as she’d always wanted to go on a balloon ride.
We clambered into the balloon basket with 10 other passengers and floated above Los Penasquitos Canyon Reserve on a beautiful February evening. The winds carried us northward, high enough at times to see the ocean and then low enough to surprise wildlife in the canyon below. As we approached our final descent, the sky burst into a cacophony of colors.
Unfortunately, as we descended, the wind grew stronger and the pilot had difficulty anchoring in an empty field while awaiting the ground crew. He chose to take drastic measures. He crashed the basket into the ground and tipped it over in an attempt to anchor it, leaving us all on our sides and the balloon drifting into a barbed wire fence. We were not allowed to leave and rescue the balloon from its perch on the fence for fear without our weight, the whole contraption would drift into the fence and road beyond.
Finally the ground crew arrived and rescued us from the basket and the balloon from the fence, albeit with a few holes. The pilot brought out some appetizers and broke open a champagne bottle as we all discussed the harrowing landing. Christine was still amazed at the serendipity of it all, but was beginning to grow suspicious. She started to grill me on whether this was really just happenstance. While I had managed to remain aloof the whole evening, I looked at her cross-wise and said, "Do you really think that I planned my car breaking down right at that Chevy’s where there happened to be a balloon ride?" She continued to prod and I finally admitted the whole evening had been planned, save the part about the car breaking down. She was touched I had remembered the off-handed comment months earlier that she’d always wanted to go on a hot air balloon ride. So, sunset being over, we rode home into the twilight in the AAA truck, car in tow and she declared it the best Valentine’s Day surprise ever.