It all started with a handwritten note to Santa sent off in a balloon from Nogales, Sonora. Randy Heiss was hiking in Patagona, Arizona, less than 30 miles from the USMexico border, when he found a deflated balloon with a note attached to it.An Arizona man enlisted the help of a Mexican radio station to locate a girl whose letter to Santa he found attached to a balloon. The balloon traveled 24 miles from Dayami's home in Nogales, Sonora to Patagonia, Arizona. It popped and landed in a bush along a trail. I wrote something like this after my dad died when I was 10. I tied it to a whale balloon from the zoo. (CNN) — Randy Heiss wasn't going to let anything — not even an international border — stop him from fulfilling an 8-year-old girl's Christmas wishes.