We can’t really call the first day and half a chase. After the Finn Pearl launched, we packed up and returned to the hotel for a good night sleep while the guys hovered around ABQ. On Tuesday, after leisurely breakfast, we went to the post office to get our balloon mail stamped, hung the sandbags out to dry, collected a few additional items for the road and then proceeded with a mighty important task – we went shopping to the Cottonwood mall. It was a productive and fun afternoon; we even considered going to the cinema. Petra, my experienced chasing partner, advised I shouldn’t get used to such a start, but neither one of us complained. Later in the evening, we spoke to Tomas and Dominik and knew that we’d have to get on the road heading east the next morning.
Wednesday was another warm gorgeous day. As we were leaving, the blue sky was stamped with several hot-air balloons that flew by the hotel from the Fiesta field.
We got on the I-40 West and drove and drove and drove for about 8 hours to Oklahoma City, crossing the Texas state border first. The ride was uneventful and easy, the landscape flat and much the same as we drove on, but we enjoyed it and found small pleasures in noting the road signs, local city advertisements and other curiosities. There was a pretty sunset too. Here are some pictures which, as usual, are worth 10,000 words:
From Oklahoma City, we took the I-35 north to Wichita, Kansas and then on to Kansas City. Tomas and Volker were still in the lead by a significant distance and planned to fly through the night and the next day. I took a nap while Petra was driving. I woke up shortly after midnight when Dominik called to let us know that the guys were experiencing difficulties. The balloon was leaking gas, and it became obvious that landing would have to take place at daybreak. We were within about 100 miles from their current position, so we were confident we’d catch up with them soon and stay with them till morning. Then around 2:30 AM local time, the command center called – the leak got worse, and 
Tomas and Volker were getting ready to land near the town of Warrensburg, Missouri, right off highway 50. We were close, within 15 miles from them, but the phone signal was cutting out and we couldn’t get the latest coordinates. Landing at night is obviously very dangerous, but there was no time to worry too much; we were trying to get as close as possible to the presumed landing site. We had followed a smaller road and needed to get back to Hwy 50. The next phone call 10 minutes later came from Tomas’ cell phone – they landed safely! You could hear a thump in the car as a huge stone fell from my chest. Petra and I were relieved, but still trying to locate the basket’s position. Finally, we got Tomas on the radio and were able to drive up a small road to a farm where we met up with him. Exhausted, disappointed, but, more importantly, alive and well, relieved that the landing was safe. He had been walking for half an hour around the dark fields and small ponds surrounded by barbwire fences trying to find a road to the farm. They had landed in the middle of a field full of crops, and it was clear that we couldn’t retrieve the basket then. Volker agreed to stay with the basket; the three of us took shelter in the chase truck. 
We slept for some 3.5 hours, then went to look for the farmer in whose crops the guys landed. Gary B. was a tall, sturdy man in his sixties. He and his associates were in the middle of harvesting their corn with little time to spare for wayfaring strangers, but after Tomas explained our situation, Gary was not unfriendly. Curiosity probably played its role, because how often does a balloon land in your soybean crops, right? He drove his pick-up truck down to where Tomas expected to find the basket and we followed them. A beautiful Midwestern day was breaking over fields and straw bales; the air was
misty and soft with first sun rays. Fortunately, the landing site was not terribly far and there was relatively easy access. For a tractor with a forklift attached, that is. And fortunately again, Gary owned one. Reunited with Volker, we started packing up the instruments and other things from the basket. Half hour later, Gary returned with his “little tractor”, as he called it. The wheels of the John Deer classic were taller than Petra, so we had hard time imagining how his “big tractor” might look like. Gary easily picked up both the basket and the provisionally packed envelope and transported them toward the truck. Only two clear lines of soybean plants squashed to the ground leading into the field indicated the landing site then. We thanked Gary, paid a fair price for the 5 bushels of beans he expected to have lost to the landing and balloon retrieval, and said good bye, so he could get back to his harvest routine, even though we could tell that he would rather join us for lunch and chatted some more. We took our time loading the truck and then left to eat at Players, a local restaurant well recommended by Gary. We finished our balloon mail 
there and later posted it at a local post office. It was mid-afternoon when we took off for the ride back to ABQ. 
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