Oct. 15 -- As a breeze blew a chill across Balloon Fiesta Park on Friday morning, 86-year-old Peggy Roach sat in her wheelchair, surrounded by family. Behind her, the crew of Coddiwomple was working to assemble the hot air balloon in the pre-dawn darkness.

The sun began to peak over the Sandia Mountains and revealed the massive outline of the balloon. Roach and her family watched in astonishment as it came to life. A loud, buzzing fan blew air into the envelope, inflating it enough for pilot Mike Heffron to walk inside of it to do his pre-flight inspection. After completing his walkaround, he proceeded to blast flames into the balloon from its burner. Standing nearby, Roach's family recorded the spectacle on their cellphones.

As for Roach, she watched the flames with her eyes wide open, her face lit up intermittently with the orange hue from the flames. Finally, the balloon was ready to load its passengers. Roach was wheeled into the balloon's basket by her son Clark and strapped in. Then her other son Jay and her daughter Kim also climbed aboard. Sitting next to her children, Roach smiled and waved to her other family members on the ground. As the balloon soared and another launch was underway at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, the realization of a dream Roach had been holding onto for over 50 years finally came true.

Born in Claude, Texas, Roach moved to Albuquerque in 1957 after her husband, Mathew, got a job at Sandia National Laboratories. In that time, she fell in love with the Balloon Fiesta, attending the first one in 1972 with her family. From that first time, "I watched them blow up and fly away, and I thought to myself, 'I wanna do that,'" she said.

But as the years passed, the opportunity never seemed to come, even though her children worked on volunteer flight crews during the early years of the fiesta.

She and her husband left Albuquerque in 2019 and moved into an assisted living community in southern Colorado. Despite leaving, Roach watched coverage of the fiesta on TV and never let go of her dream to one day fly in a balloon. But that dream seemed less likely as medical struggles with rheumatoid arthritis and subsequent treatments with prednisone and other steroids badly damaged her adrenal glands. Even though she has been wheelchair-bound since 2015 because of this and issues with her lower back, Roach has never let her medical episodes slow her down or dampen her spirits.

Her son Clark knew a balloon ride was still something his mother wanted to do, so he began to research balloons that could accommodate someone in a wheelchair. His search led him to Heffron and Coddiwomple Ballooning.

"I squeezed the trigger and organized a flight and it wasn't during the Balloon Fiesta and that was a big mistake," the son said, laughing. Roach did not want to fly in a balloon unless it was during the Balloon Fiesta. Clark was able to work with Heffron and reschedule the flight for last week.

Another condition of the flight for Roach was that her children had to ride with her. The only one missing was son Rick, who was unable to attend due to scheduling conflicts.

On Friday, the family flew over Downtown, scratching the tips on the city's skyscrapers before dipping into the Rio Grande valley and brushing up against the bosque trees. After an hour and a half in the air, Coddiwomple finally touched back down. The experience was better than Roach could have asked for. "It was fabulous," she said.

As for her daughter Kim, the ride was more emotional than she thought it would be. Her mother "has been a survivor from so many medical things in her life, on life support at one point. I think that's why this was something special," she said.

Son Jay was also reflective when speaking about his mother's journey from seeing the balloons for the first time over 50 years ago to her flight on Friday.

"Seeing our mom, a person who's in a wheelchair, fly ... it was amazing," he said. "She can't walk, but she can fly."