From thousands of feet in the air, I look out over Colorado Springs from a vantage point I’ve never had until now.

“Is this your first time?”

Melody Landon asked the question about 30 minutes earlier — when our feet were still on solid, grassy ground at Memorial Park — as my colleague, photojournalist Christian Murdock, and I watched our pilot and a crew of three prepare our balloon for takeoff.

Landon has been volunteering at Colorado Springs’ annual Labor Day Lift Off event for 10 years. She joined dozens of media personnel, pilots, crew and other event organizers at the park on Friday morning to preview the event before its official kickoff on Saturday.

Murdock and I answered simultaneously: He’s done this before. It’s my first time.

“You’re going to love it,” Landon said. “It’s incredible, how the city looks from up in the air.”

She’s right, I think to myself a half-hour later.

I’m in the basket with Murdock and our pilot, Frankie Martinez, and we’re hovering now over Memorial Park. The burner above our heads roars to life every once in a while as Martinez adjusts it to keep us afloat.

The weather is perfect — almost no wind. For most of our approximately 30-minute ride, we hover.

The three of us watch a couple of other hot air balloons make quick touchdowns on Prospect Lake. We look out over Adams Elementary School, the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department, Colorado Springs Fire Department headquarters to the east. When Martinez turns us around so we face west, there’s Evergreen Cemetery below, and The Broadmoor, downtown and Garden of the Gods farther out.

The sun illuminates the city and the people who are now making their way into their cars and off to work. It glistens off the buildings and turns the mountains purple.

“It looks like a toy city,” I observe. I liken the scene to a non-Christmas Christmas village, complete with miniature houses and vehicles and roads and parks and city centers.

It’s peaceful and serene. We don’t even hear the birds from up here.

This morning’s experience isn’t something I would have normally done on my own. Like many people, I have a healthy fear of heights. Riding a ski lift gives me butterflies. But with Murdock’s encouragement earlier this week, I decided to get out of my comfort zone.

Now, I’m glad I did.

Our hot air balloon floats and glides along the air, the way a swan gracefully drifts in water, and I think that helps calm my anxiety. I don’t feel like we’ve been launched upward and outward. If I don’t think about it too much, I can almost convince myself I’m simply looking out over the city from a skyscraper, not a woven (yet strong) basket.

Martinez, who is from Albuquerque, N.M., comes up to Colorado Springs every year to participate in our annual Labor Day Lift Off balloon festival. He’s been around hot air balloons since he was a kid, and got his student license in 2015. Now he’s commercially certified, which means he can teach hot air balloon flight and can fly a hot air balloon for hire.

Lots of balloon pilots from Albuquerque participate in the Colorado Springs event every year before participating in the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in October, he says.

“I love coming here. You guys have a lot of open space, which is great,” Martinez tells us.

When we’re back on the ground (we land, softly, in a church parking lot just west of Memorial Park), moms and grandmoms with their children watch with awe as we climb out of the basket, the giant balloon still inflated above us.

Martinez invites them to get closer to the balloon, and take some photos with it.

Earlier that morning, before takeoff, a family with three small children walked into Memorial Park and watched crews prepare the balloons. The two eldest boys jumped and danced and pointed with glee.

“And that’s why we do this,” Landon said, nodding toward the children.

The free event includes other activities like the balloon glow, a drone show, aerial acrobats, a beer garden, live entertainment and plenty of food options.

Hot air balloon enthusiasts, daredevils and people like me who are just simply conquering a fear can take their own balloon ride, too — for a price. Wheelchair accessible flights are available. Call 1-800-725-2477 to book.