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