Fiesta -- Day 6

Getting around to posting more pictures of Fiesta is being more difficult that planned. There is so much to do. I'm still going through 287 emails and I was checking email while I was out there! Also I've been working on resizing the pictures that I think are worth posting as well as the one's that you might like to see.

The pictures below were taken on day 6 of Fiesta and as you can see there are very few and except for the people in attendance not very interesting since they don't convey what you really see when there.

This first picture is a tailgate party that was held by the Reflector, I think. The Reflector is a forum for balloonists to post balloonist type stuff. I've been trying for some time to join and only just received an email the other day from someone at this party. There are some hundreds of people on the Reflector but as you can see only a few managed to make the tailgate. I attended last year and I think there were 300+ in attendance.

This next shot is taken standing near the middle of the field. The launch field is very nearly a mile long and quarter of a mile wide. Those little white posts mark off a square about 80 feet on a side. This square will hold up to five balloons though not all at the same time. Typically two or three will inflate as first wave and the remander in second wave. After all there are 750 balloons in attendance and they try to launch all of them within hour or an hour and half.

This last picture is of the Sandia Mountian. Again this picuter hardly does justice to what you are seeing. I'm staning in the same spot as the field shot above which puts me nearly 10 miles or so from that mountian. I took five pictures from one end to the other and stiched them together but when I put them in this post it was so small that it wasn't worth it. So I just posted the third of the five I took. Once I can figure out how, I will post a complete mountain picture. Till then this is the best I can do.





As for my day X of Fiesta I guess I should mention that I'm counting from the day we started traveling. The event which started on Saturday is officialy day 1. The pictures on this post were taken on Monday which would be day 3 of the event or day 6 from the time we left St. Louis.

Well, I'm back in St. Louis.

The group left Alburqurque Sunday morning at 9:45am mountain time and manage to make it to Joplin Missouri at 11:27pm. It would have been nice enough drive but it began to rain about an hour or so into the trip. It rained all the way to Joplin. The temperature began to drop and winds picked up. We were tired when we got to Missouri.

We awoke to more rain. It was nice getting up at six in the morning given that we had been getting up at 4 in the morning. We loaded up the luggage, had a hot breakfast, fueled the vehicles and off we went. It rained all the way to St. Louis. It rained all the way from the middle of the Texas panhandle to St. Louis Missouri. Rain, rain, rain.

I've been home for about five hours and it's still raining. Tonights game between the Cardinals and the Mets might be rained out. I'm tired of rain. Well, its the middle of October in the Mid-West what else should I expect.

Sorry, but I've no pictures of the trip back, it's was too dreary to photograph anything. Now that I'm back I hope to post some notes and pictures of the last parts of my trip to Balloon Fiesta. Till then, stay dry.

There are so many things to see at this event that you would hardly think twice about seeing a segway twitching back and forth keeping itself balanced. It's the "I thought I saw a..." moment when I was deciding wether or not to keep the photograph. I mean this picture is nothing special to write about - unless....

You think you see a small stuffed animal in the saddle bag. Turns out it's a real dog. It was rather cool that morning and this dog looks so comfortable in its moble dog house. It's a given that dogs love to sleep most of the day (for proof just look at any Peanuts cartoon).but how much easier the back and forth balancing motion of the segway shurely made it for this petite canine.

I wonder if this little fella is thinking about downing the infamous red tri-wing Folker, or stopping by the local pub for a pint of icy cold rootbeer?

These pictures were taken on day five of the event. The morning events were cancelled due to rain. We had'nt left the hotel when it was announced on KKOB 770 AM. I can tell you it was nice getting some extra sleep even if it was only an hour.

I'll try to get day six and seven posted tomorrow. If we're lucky I'll have some pictures of the flight and other balloons. There is also the Sushi party later in the day. Sushi is a flying gold fish balloon. Forest and Katie are just some of the very good and cool people you get to meet in this hobby slash sport.

I'll get you Red Baron

Well, here it is day five and I'm finally getting around to posting the events of day two, three, and four. Can't imagine why I'm finding It so difficult to make regular posts. It could be that I've changed time zones, changed altitude from 400ft MSL to 5000ft MSL, gone from the mid-West to the arrid desert, I stay up to late and get up way to early in the morning. All that means I'm tired and a good bit lazy.

The weather this morning was bad enough for the morning events to be cancelled. We've had a light rain most of the night and early morning. Regardless we still need to get to the field and that required us to get up at 4a.m. We got to the field and opened up the Lindstrand tent (Lindstrand is a hot air balloon manufacturer). Scott did his thing there and I managed to get a little sleep in the van. Tim and George wondered around the grounds during brief interludes of no rain.

Day Two:

I tried to take a few pictures during the trip but its kinda difficult to do when your driving. The roads are not the smoothest in the world and I took a bunch of blurry pictures. I took about fifteen pictures and I'm posting the three that came out fine. The first one here is of the morning sunrise. We've been on the road from Clinton OK for about and hour or so and somewhere in the Texas panhandle. I took a shot like this last year and really liked it and thought I'd do it again this year.

These next two are also taken in Texas and are within a mile or so of each other. The first is a leaning water tower. I tried to take several photos before this one but they were pretty bad (the same is true for the second photo).

The cross below is suposed to be the tallest in the Western Hemisphere but I think it was decided that is true only if you include the altitude. There is a similar cross in Illinois and most of our traveling group is from there. Perhaps it's just a friendly rivalry. Regardless, it's a nice reminder of important things.


Day Three - Friday 6 October 2006

Well, what can I say? I was very - very lazy with the taking of pictures this day. This photo is of the pilot and crewmates cleaning the burners. Its nice to make things clean and sparkly in the windy desert. The winds were around 10-12 mph all day. We were part of the Fiesta Challange race which is small two event race held on Friday and Saturday. The Friday evening race was cancelled because of the winds mentioned earlier. As for the rest of the day we ran errands, really not much to report for this third day.

Day four - 7 October 2006

The morning started out very cloudy but with slow winds. Balloonists like winds around the three to ten mile an hour range. The winds at 800 feet, however, were fast, around 21mph. There were scattered showers in the area including the field. It rained on everyone at the pilot briefing. So we went on weather hold for about an half an hour. If the light rain ended and the winds up high did not mix down all would be good. Instead of calling 750+ pilots back to the tower for a short brief ing we were told to keep an eye out for the ride balloons doing there thing. This was nice as their launch spots are one row North of ours.

As you can see by the picture below all worked out well and we began to see the giant ride balloons begin to inflate and launch. The surface winds were great and it was going to be a good morning to fly. There are maybe ten more of these balloons on either side of this photo (my kingdom for a wide angle lens!). After these guys began to launch most all of the first wave pilots began to lay out and inflate their balloons.

Fast forward half an hour and things began to get fun. The fast winds above began to mix down and, heres the important part, in the opposite direction. Now a great number of balloons had pointed their balloons to the down wind side. Now that the winds have reversed directions things get very difficult because you have the large part of the system catching the faster winds. This causes balloons to dish in and roll around from side to side. These balloon envelopes are about 85 tall (long when on the ground) and about the same in diameter. It can be hard to keep these things in one place when facing the upwind side. Anyway, I and several of my crewmates ran out to help other balloons keep from rolling back on the basket and burners and the chase vehicle. We don't like holes in the envelope and trucks and trailers can put some large holes in balloons. So here's were I stop taking pictures.

Those balloons that had managed to be fully inflated before the wind speed and direction changes were able to launch with the permision of the Zebra's. These are the launch officials and they dress in black and white and add zebra like toys to their person. I'll try to get pictures when I can. The balloon below is one of about 200 balloons that did manage to launch that morning.

As the morning progressed the winds did settle down a bit and many balloons that had inflated and choosen not to fly put on a show for the countless many that had come to watch the Mass Assention that was scheduled for that day. Joey and Lilly are crowed favorites and I'm sure you can see why. The Mass Assention I mentioned is when 750 balloons launch in waves and fill the sky with a multitude of colors, shapes and sizes. You can look North and then South and see balloons at every point between. It is a fantastic site to see. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and I'll add pictures as I can, though pictures will not do this event justice.

Well, I was going to add day five at time but I need to get ready to go to the field for a balloon glow. The weather is still poor, scattered showers and the surface winds are predicted to be 10 with gusts to 15. Our team did a glow last night in these winds and we managed nine minutes before we put down. I can tell you we were very tired and winded due to the altitude. It's also why I don't have any pictures from the event. So with any luck the glow tonight will go off and I'll include pictures so you see what a balloon glow is.

party on

For the last several years we have met our friends from the ballooning community near our home in St. Louis MO. to begin our annual trek to New Mexico for the International Balloon Fiesta.

Travelling with a pack of wild balloonists makes for a very humourous and quick journey. Here the pack gathers around one of many watering holes.

Dean, finally free of the confines of his vehicle, shows us how much further we have to travel to Clinton OK. were we will end our travels for day one.

The watering hole in Clinton OK. holds something completely different than the one located back home.

Members of the heard must continually compete for food. Those who are fast will feed another day. Those that are slow will become the food of someone else. A lesson, I fear, I've learned to late.

There is no safe place for any heard when there are cameras about. Photographers often hide in dark corners waiting for the unsupecting balloon heard to gather around a table hoping for the most rare of events to occur. Spontanious posing with grins. This is an extremlly dangerous moment for the photographer since this only happens when the heard is waiting for it's first round of drinks.

O.K. So you might be wondering what happens when a member of the heard decides not to attend the annual outing. Well, it involves all the other members of the community having a good laugh.

The journey continues in the morning at 0500hrs....yawn. We should be at the launch field by early afternoon. Till then Be Excellent.

Snoopy Finally lands his doghouse....er Sopwith Camel. O.K. I'm a big fan of Snoopy as the famous World War One flying Ace. Always have and always will be. But this site is not so much about Snoopy and his adventures behind the lines. It's a site about my interestest in hot air ballooning.

Over the next few weeks I'll be posting (more like try to post after the flights) any pictures and random thoughts that cross my mind about the mornings adventures. I'll even be going to back track by including some mutterings on balloon rallies that happened earlier this year.

The big balloon event is just around the corner. Alburqueque International Balloon Fiesta starts on 6 October and runs until 16 October of 2006. There are going to be around 750 balloons of every shape, size and color. Though hot air balloons make up 99% of the entrants there are usually several gas balloons around too. I'll try to take as many pictures as I can and post the good ones here.