October 2009

With the rising of the sun comes a rising of every color in the rainbow. It's October in Albuquerque, and the International Balloon Fiesta is delighting locals and visitors alike with a combined lift-off of hot air balloons the rest of the world can only imagine.

The famous festival draws thousands of people each year to see its magical moments of a clear blue sky knitted with a patchwork of color. Giant buzzing bees, super-size pints of beer and massive cows were some of the unusual shapes we saw floating across the horizon.

And this is not a festival to just stand behind a barrier and watch - from any vantage point at the Fiesta Park, you can see hot air balloons unloaded, stretched out, inflated and launched right before your eyes.

The early start is perhaps not for the faint hearted - we were on the road before 6am to squeeze in the drive, park n' ride and breakfast burrito with coffee before sun-up. The balloons can't go up or stay up in the full heat of the day, hence the dawn rush. But the amazing views mean it is surely worth the effort - I'm told it is the most photographed event in the world.

To that end, here follows a series of snaps I took at the fiesta. Let's look at the experience of one of the hundreds of balloons, named Moonshine. It arrives in a truck like this:

then gets inflated to this...

Last minute addition of crew member...

...quick TV interview...

...and then off it goes! More photos from the day in this blog's Photo Gallery or on my Picasa Gallery, which you can get to via the Favourite Links on the right of the page or through my website. Until next time, dear readers, here's to a similarly rapid rise for Silly Billy on his new adventure in the USA :-)