Saturday, October 4th, 2008
Albuquerque

Balloon Fiesta Opening

Partly Cloudy

Oops, we overslept! Dashed around the house, grabbed the dog and jumped in the car. Since we’d already planned on where to park, that’s where we headed. Traffic was light, so we assumed everyone was already there. Wrong!


The first turn-off to the balloon field was backed up for at least a mile. We had planned to take the second turn-off, but it was way backed up too. We then decided to go down to the next exit and return when we spotted several cars simply pulled off on the shoulder of the highway just beyond the exit. That’d work!! So we snuck in a spot, and it turned out to be the best seats in the house!!

We heard later that only about 25% of the balloons had arrived, because the weather forecast was so bad. But there were enough for us! It was grand!! I just wish the sun had peeked out more often because the colors of the balloons were so bright and happy, but we were totally content as it was!

It was kind of sad that the weather was not good – maybe because the barometer was falling, but very few of the balloons made it far from the launch field. Didn’t matter to us – we had great seats!

There were so many colorful gorgeous balloons!! And a few of the fancy shapes launched this morning too! A big cow – a goldfish – a stagecoach – Darth Vader – a Greek urn – a castle (which barely cleared the field before it crumbled to the ground) – a great big pair of bees – a ladybug – and more.

We were just sitting, grinning like kids in a candy store, snapping pictures as fast as our little cameras would take them!

Just about the time the last balloon launched, a cop drove up and announced that we had to get off the shoulder within the next three minutes or we’d be cited! I just backed up a little off the shoulder and he was happy.

By then we were starving, since we’d dashed outta the house without any munchies, and we headed north looking for something to eat, and to see if we could find one of the balloons as it came down, to watch up close as it was deflated and folded up. We had only driven a couple miles when we rounded a corner to see a big balloon laid out in the parking lot of a church, with all the crew around doing everything they do to deflate it safely and get it ready for the next flight!!!

After having a late breakfast, we headed back to the coach to rest up for the evening events. We had tickets to the Gondola Club to watch the evening launch from prime seats, which included dinner and entertainment and fireworks.

Everything was great, except the balloon launch was cancelled because of weather, the dinner was only adequate, and it started to rain, seriously rain, and the fireworks were cancelled too. $100 bucks, each, down the drain. Grumble.

What’s really sad though is that the opening weekend was not all it could be, simply because Mama Nature decided to flex her muscles a little. Thankfully, the 37th Annual Balloon Fiesta goes on all week and next weekend, so we’ll have lots more chances to see all the hot air and gas balloons we could ever wish for!