Last year, in celebration of living to age 100, Ina Van Lydegraf took to the skies.

Van Lydegraf spent her centennial birthday in a hot air balloon above the Salem area, where she was born and has lived most of her life.

“It’s so quiet up there. You’re above the trees and you don’t even know you’re moving. I looked down, and I could see the highway and the Willamette River,” she said. “We were up there for about an hour. I almost hated to come back down.”

Van Lydegraf turned 101 this year, on Sept. 20. The latest birthday celebration stayed on the ground. She and her family visited Swan Island Dahlias near Canby, then had dinner at her son’s house in Dallas.

“He made the peach ice cream that I have made all the time before,” she said. “I gave him the ice cream freezer and the recipe, a

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