Day 9: Balloon Fiesta! (pt ii)

So….with getting through the long line in and being amazed by the drone show I ventured into the field. There was a little more light to discern things and there was some additional glow from some balloons and like a moth I ventured towards the light.

The Big Boy cam is not great in such low light conditions so I was curious how the iPhone would do. It did ok.

So now the trick was how not to take 500 pics from the same area? The sky was getting a tad lighter and as more balloons were inflated there was extra light from their burners (or whatever they are called).

One of the traditions is that the first balloons to be inflated are the original 13 who were part of the first fiesta. That was in 1972 (53 years ago) in a shopping mall parking lot and 20,000 people were in attendance. It has grown up a little since then.

The iPhone’s renditions are pretty spectacular but not exactly a true photo. But who’s complaining?

One things the photos do not capture is the low-ish hissing sound of the flames nor their warmth. It was far from a chilly, chilly morning but the distant heat was comforting. Every once in a while the pilots of the original 13 would count down in unison and when they got to ‘one’ they’d simultaneously toot with their flames.

until they started to really rise, I did not really appreciate their size. As more became inflated the thrum of the thrusters became more constant. There was more light at this point and so it became easier to navigate. The grass was surprisingly flat, too.

Another thing I did not expect was the ability wander around the balloonists. You could walk right on up ask questions and things like that.

By this time the 13 balloons were up and ready to go, but soon some started to deflate for some unknown reason. The true reason was that the decision to launch or not launch had just happened. Well call on the ground, it was a little too windy a couple hundred feet up, and that was enough to call off the launch.

But that did not matter much because other balloons were starting to get fired up.