Back from Balloonfiesta

This is the Balloon Mom was riding in...................
Well I made it back from Balloonfiesta in Albuquerque, NM. Mom and I had a BLAST! We saw the most amazing things ever.. GIANT balloons flying everywhere.. They say they have over 100,000 people there that visit each day, so there were a ton of people..but also a ton of balloons..Over 500 that float around. While we were there no one crashed, however the Wind was a factor on Wednesday when we got there.. They had shut down all the balloon stuff for WED evening due to the wind. The wind KILLS the balloons quickly..It can't be blowing over like 10 mph, or it will kill the ballooons.

On Thursday we got up and went out and its kinda hard to drive to the festival, because all you want to do is watch the balloons! Sometimes they come pretty close to the highway and they are so pretty! The Special Shape balloons are my favorite..These Bee's were so cute.. They would inflate up, and then their hands were held together by a giant piece of Velcro..I loved them.. I'll post some more pics tomorrow of my favorite Monster Balloon..

At night they have something called the "Special Shapes Glowdeo" in which all the Character balloons stay on the ground, and they 'glow' from their hot air inflator..I also loved the giant pig..It was from http://www.whenpigsfly.bz/ Very cool Balloon, and it was a GIANT Pig!
Then On Friday Morning we got up early to go and try to get a Hot Air Balloon Ride.. Only one of us could go, so Mom decided to go up with balloon Captain, Randy Wright from Plano, TX. He was Hysterical! He had over 1000 balloon hours, and was an amazing Balloon Captain. I decided to be a part of the 'Chase' team, which Meant we were responsible for following the Balloon around, and picking them up when they landed..I almost felt like a storm Chaser!


Here is a pic of our ballon guy, Randy.. It was a chilly morning there.. Starts off around 40 degrees.. and you spend the whole morning flying..You take off at like 7am and you are not done till almost 1. Its a whole "process".. First you drive like 7 miles away for a place to "Launch".. then you inflate the Balloon.. Then you fly for about an Hour and a half..Then you land.. then you load up the balloon..Then you drive back to the Balloonbase.. Then you have a 'Champagne' ceremony.. Then you have lunch! Its quite a process, but a fun one, and we had THE BEST balloon team ever! So much fun. Randy & His wife Diana have been flying in balloons for a long, long time, and Randy made it so memorable for us!

Mom had the BEST time ever! She got to do a "Splash & Dash" which means they got to dip the bottom of the basket into water..they did it TWICE! Once they dipped into the Rio Grande!
She had an absolute blast! She also interviewed our Pilot, so I'll try to get that uploaded here in the next couple of days.. Here's a pic of Diana & Randy Wright, our magical Balloon people!

More tomorrow.....