AMERICAN FORK — Erma McAffee's children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren were not at all surprised to be waving at her high in the sky in a hot-air balloon Saturday morning.
The nearly-90-year-old matron of the family has never been one to sit at home and knit.
"Is she wild and crazy? I think so," said her granddaughter Shauna Hatton. "She's very adventuresome."
"She's amazing. She still drives. She keeps her own checkbook. She weeds her own yard. No one else can do it for her," said her daughter, Sandra Nixon.
McAffee's life so far has been crammed with adventure. She's been in a sailplane. She has climbed to the top of Mayan temples in Mexico. She's been to every state in the union, to Europe and to Canada.
She and her late husband served two LDS missions, to Samoa and to the Philippines.
She once took her brood of five children to the top of Mount Timpanogos and ended up having to bring them all safely down in a thunderstorm.
Nixon remembers her mother telling her to stop screaming after she saw flashes of lightning and the earth crumbled away beneath her feet.
"You're scaring everybody," she said, hanging onto her daughter with one hand. "You need to stop it."
Nixon said her mother has always been high-spirited and full of courage. She's in prime health.
So when the family started looking for ways to make her 90th birthday extra special, they decided to find a way to get her aloft in a balloon.
Since they are longtime customers of the Bank of American Fork and aware that the bank sponsors three hot-air balloons, Nixon asked the president of the bank how much it would cost for a ride.
Dale Gunther assured her it wouldn't cost anything. He contacted the balloon pilot, and Brian Kelly called McAffee.
She took off early Saturday morning into a clear blue sky in the bright pink piggy-bank balloon amid a crowd of colorful nylon balloons assembled for the annual Steel Days celebration.
"I think I'll be able to see my house," she said. "I'm not nervous. I'm excited."
McAffee said she isn't sure what comes next on her list of things to do. She wanted to try hang gliding, but so far she's been talked out of it by her friends. She still might try it.
"I just like to try new things," she said.
McAffee will actually turn 90 on July 21 at the Homestead Resort in the town Midway, where she was born and raised.
She'll have 73 guests there to help celebrate.
But she won't need any help blowing out the candles.
E-mail: haddoc@desnews.com