10-11-07 Thursday

Up at 4:45 and a very quick bite in the hotel before heading to the mall to get our bus to ride out to Balloon Park for the fiesta. This morning is special shapes mass ascension and it was awesome. The day started with three Wells Fargo balloons ascending w/ American flags flying below the baskets and the national anthem playing over the loudspeakers! What an awesome way to start the day!! After that the special shape balloons started inflating. All this is just before sunrise. The sky is that peculiar pinky color just before sunrise and it is gorgeous except the balloons show up better in sunlight.

To inflate the balloons, they start with gas powered fans to blow air into the balloon......when enough air has inflated the balloon they fire the burners to heat the air and the balloons start rising up off the ground. There are lots of "zebras" out on the field - these are kind of like referees and they give the signals for each balloon to launch. They have to clear an area around the basket of the balloon and when they give the thumbs up, the balloons start their ascent. Imagine hundreds of balloons in all sorts of shapes and colors that are sitting on the ground waiting for the signal to launch. There was a cow, Darth Vader, a scarecrow, a haunted house, a jack-0-lantern, beer stein, champagne bottle, moving van, the Brandenburg gate, Noah's Ark, a frog, turtle, witch, fish a HUGE stagecoach and even the Energizer Bunny who is unbelievably BIG! Amazing! The best part is that you can walk down among the balloons and watch the crews get everything ready - you are not limited to grandstand viewing. There is even a website where you can volunteer to crew - they always seem to need help. Also walking around the balloons you can get trading cards that have info on each balloon - they pass those out as souvenirs. Some have even more elaborate souvenirs, etc.

Before all the special shapes we noticed two rows of regular shaped balloons at the far end of the field. We think these were balloons that had paying passengers as you could pay to fly in a balloon. These guys took off before the national anthem even.

Carol and Annie could not believe the number and shapes of the balloons. Got some great pix of some of the special shapes. After the special shapes cleared the field we could see hundreds of balloons inflated and ready to fly beyond the borders of the balloon park. These balloons were participating in the key grabs and flying competitions. They cleared the field of spectators and set up tall poles in various places. These poles had envelopes attached to the tops. The envelopes had either money inside or one had a key to a brand new Honda truck. The object is to fly your balloon close enough to the pole to grab the envelope attached to it. That was fun to watch too. There was also a competition to drop markers onto targets. It was awesome to see waves of balloons flying into the field. We left the park around 10:30 and were very tired when we got back to the hotel as we had such a late nite last nite and such an early morning this morning. We all took naps, then got an late lunch or early dinner depending on your point of view. Went to Range Diner and had wondeful meat loar w/ mashed potatoes and veggies. LOTS of food so we brought the rest back to the hotel as we have refrigerators and microwaves in our rooms so we can reheat stuff.

Back to the Balloon Park about 5:00 p.m. and it was fairly hot (85) this afternoon. We bought some hats/visors and then walked the concessions area some and found a table to sit and watch the Special shapes Glowdeo. It was really neat. The balloons inflated and stayed tethered but at intervals they had an "all glow" where all the balloons turned on their burners illuminating the balloons from the inside. That was really cool and the pictures do not do it justice. Thousands of people there....multitudes in fact. We opted for not staying for the fireworks so once the glowdeo was over we headed back to catch the bus. Back at the hotel by 8:30 (an early nite for us) and we finished off our lunches, looked at the pictures from today and then ready for bed. Carol and Annie have decided not to go back to the balloon park tomorrow a.m. - they are going to sleep in and relax. We are headed to Santa Fe tomorrow afternoon so it will be another busy day.