I dropped my iphone from up here. The amazing thing is that we found it and it was fully functioning – just without a screen. The hot air balloon experience itself was really phenomenal. We felt like we were sailing – weightless and unattached, higher and higher, in the midst of a surge of other balloons. The Albuquerque Hot Air Balloon Fiesta hosts 550 balloons, all launched at approximately the same time around sunrise. As they were inflated, the balloons swelled, crowded the sky and each other – there was hardly room. Our balloon fit 12 people and as we fought through the sea of people on the ground to climb into the basket one lady watching us wanted to know 'if they are just taking volunteers?’ We started hovering slowly slowly and then we were out of a scene from the Wizard of Oz and everyone was waving up at us and we couldn’t harness our smiles or wonder. (Full phone story a little further down).
The phone tumbled from my hands as I juggled it and a camera at the same time. I watched it hit the wicker basket beneath us and fall in slow motion, down down down. Chris pinpointed its smashing. He watched the pieces land. I couldn’t stomach it. Once we landed (which was a pretty bumpy ride – in a strange, commercial dirt field…the city that day had to accommodate 550 balloon landings – in fields, parking lots, even graveyards), Chris suggested we try “Find my iPhone” and sure enough, the phone appeared on the map alive at some industrial address in Albuquerque: Edith and Montano. We drove there and started in a gravel/dirt pit lot, traversed a dirt graveyard (really looked like Breaking Bad material) – white, wooden crosses, grave stones and ended up here by this trailer below. The phone’s screen was totally smashed, but the sonar sound was pinging loud and clear and it even rang when we called it. I plugged it into my computer and everything was there – all my photos, notes, text messages. Incredible.
4 comments:
Unbelievable! What an amazing sight and experience! Can you believe that phone survived?
Hot air balloon rides are a blast. We did one in Minnesota -- over by Stillwater. You lost your phone the same time I lost my camera -- yours fell out of a hot air balloon and mine dropped out of my hand while I was trying to take a photo out of the window of our car -- while it was traveling at about 70 mph. My camera's innards survived, but it's lens won't function anymore, so I need to buy a new camera. I didn't realize it had spit out my memory card when it landed, so -- after picking up the camera -- and trying to get it to work for about fifteen minutes, I realized that I had no memory card and we had to go back to look for it, since it had about 2000 photos on it! We actually found the thing and all the images were preserved -- just like with your phone! Glad your phone still carried all the data you originally had in it! That's quite a miracle from such a height!
what good luck!! and what lovely photos. the balloon fiesta seems more accessible now, for some reason. have never seen it up close like that.
Wow! Just wow!
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