ARLINGTON – The blasts of hot air keeping Mickey aloft were the first clues that a strange day was dawning in the cul-de-sac.
Maggie, a springer spaniel, sounded the alarm around 7:20 a.m. Wednesday for the Axthelm family, running frantically in circles on their corner of 37th Drive NE and 179th Place NE in Smokey Point.
Floating barely above the rooftops was a giant Mickey Mouse head. Disney’s hot air balloon was about to land on their street.
Moms and kids came running, some shoeless or still in pajamas. Commuters leaned low in their cars, trying to get a better look.
“Did somebody win something?” asked Brandon Axthelm, 38, camera in hand.
Two doors down, Angela Sandoval heard the commotion from inside her house and wondered what her two daughters were yelling about.
“I thought it was the garbage man,” Sandoval said.
Not quite.
“It’s Mickey Mouse!” shouted the Sandoval girls, Daisy, 7, and Jasmin, 10.
The balloon’s pilots, Scott and Laurie Spencer of Boise, Idaho, touched the balloon down gently on the street.
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Photo GalleryWaiting with the balloon crew to greet everybody was Mickey Mouse himself.
The Sandoval girls ran to the balloon, then bounded back to their mother.
“Take me to Disneyland,” Daisy pleaded.
Angela Sandoval reminded them they had to get ready for school.
“I want to skip school,” Daisy said.
“No, we can’t,” her sister, Jasmin, said. “We have to get an education first.”
Daisy’s reaction was exactly what Disney promoters had in mind when they launched this West Coast tour of “The Happiest Balloon on Earth” to mark Disneyland’s yearlong 50th anniversary. The Anaheim, Calif., theme park opened July 17, 1955.
The Mickey Mouse balloon lifted off from Arlington Airport about 7 a.m. and landed 1 1/2 miles away in the Smokey Point neighborhood.
Wednesday’s Arlington flight was part of the Seattle-area stop on a tour that has touched down in the Grand Canyon, San Francisco and Vancouver, B.C.
Laurie Spencer said they chose Arlington Airport because they would not have to worry about much air traffic compared with busier, bigger airports.
Scott Spencer said he usually looks for a neighborhood to land in to draw kids and families to Mickey.
This year’s Mickey balloon features gold ears to commemorate the golden anniversary, said Heather Hust, a Disney spokeswoman following the tour.
The balloon’s predecessor, “Ear Force One,” had the normal black ears, and after this summer, Mickey will go back to black, Hust said.
The street landing looked improvised and a bit hairy, given the tall trees nearby, but Scott Spencer said the windless conditions made it quite easy.
“We call it Walt weather,” Scott Spencer said. “It’s always a beautiful day in Disneyland.”
Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.
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