Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta 2008

Well.....we just left the balloon fiesta where we had another fantastic Escapee event. 178 people attended and enjoyed 2 great launch days. We arrived several days before they came in to get the area ready. When they arrived on Wednesday we were ready for them after having to clean up the tent area from the drenching rain we got a few days previous. Thursday was almost an ideal day for flying. The box effect was in place and we watched balloons fly for 3 hours as they flew over us going south....raised in altitude and flew over us again going north. We again got a treat on Friday morning. When I got up the breeze was coming out of the south and I thought..."oh no...we will only be able to see them from a distance today!" However, the balloon crews started arriving in the field in front of us and started unloading the balloons. We were in for a treat! Kellie Gunn has been here for 7 years and she said she has never witnessed what they did on Friday. Since the wind was coming out of the south and the balloonist wanted to compete in the contests they changed and made the contest field the launch field and the launch field the contest field. We got to see them launch the balloons right in from of us. You can see how close they were to us. They also launched further south of us and flew over us to the competition field. WOW what a sight. We only got 2 days of flying for the Balloon HOP but everyone was happy with what they saw. Saturday we woke to rain and lots and lots of wind. Sunday was also a bust since the wind was still too strong to fly. We left Albuquerque yesterday morning and traveled west to Meteor Crator RV park....200 miles from North Ranch. We will be home in a few hours. We visited the crator and I will post those pictures after I get home. Life is good!!!

New Balloon Shapes

Here are a few of the new balloon shapes this year. ( The cathedral, the pig, the new lady bug and the stork)The cathedral had trouble flying with the two tall towers. They never flew very far. This picture shows it landing after taking off just on the other side of the rounded roof building.