On a glorious, crisp September morning, Patti Winn’s “bucket list” got a little shorter.

Winn, who just turned 78 and is undergoing chemotherapy for a rare abdominal cancer, lifted off Tuesday morning in a hot-air balloon for the ride of a lifetime with three of her good friends, all of them from Libby.

“This has been on my bucket list for so long,” Winn said afterwards, still flying high from the experience. “We had a delightful time.”

Accompanying her were Barbara Tripp, 93, who drove the foursome to Kalispell the night before the early-morning liftoff, Nadine Stayton, 85, and Bobbi Rucker, 78.

It was a senior moment like no other.

“Oh, it was so nice and peaceful — beautiful,” Tripp said.

Fantasy Flights owner Paul Fifield piloted the women, giving them one of the longest rides of the summer season as he looked for a perfect landing spot.

After climbing to 8,500 feet, the wind blew the balloon east, Winn said, and it took a while to find a good open spot to land.

Stubble in the Flathead’s canola fields is just too hard on the balloon fabric, the women were advised.

To get out of the balloon basket, it had to be tipped on its side so there was a four woman pile-up.

“I was on the bottom,” Tripp said with a laugh. “But I was fine.”

The women were treated to sparkling cider and given certificates afterwards.

Fifield’s wife, Marlene, drove the chase vehicle that met the women after they landed.

“I told them, ‘You guys do everything right,’” Tripp said.

When Winn turned 65 she decided a hot-air balloon ride was something she wanted to do before she died.

In 2001 the ride was scheduled but then canceled because of the weather. After she was diagnosed with terminal cancer a year ago, it seemed time was of the essence to take out the bucket list again.

Her doctor gave her these instructions: “Do anything you want, eat anything you want and be selfish.”

Winn has braved the cancer with a positive attitude and another dollop of helpful advice from one of her daughters, who told her not to acknowledge the disease.

“She told me, ‘Just think of it as an unwelcome visitor in your body,’” Winn said. “So I just deep doing what I’m doing. I don’t look sick, I don’t feel sick and I don’t act sick.”

She’s anxious to report back to her doctor that she’d checked the balloon ride off the list.

Winn is taking chemotherapy through a portable pump she takes home to Libby and then sends back to the treatment center in Kalispell.

Her faith keeps her going.

“I’m so blessed. I have a lot of people praying for me,” she said. “God’s got his hand in this.”

Though she doesn’t know how much time she has left, she’s willing herself to live long enough to see one of her grandsons graduate from college, and to see her daughter Susan, who ironically was laid off from a cancer research center job in her early 50s and qualified for a retraining grant, graduate from college.

And Winn just might go ballooning again.

“My friend Mabel still wants to go. She couldn’t come with this time,” she said. “We just might do it.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.