Sunday, August 31, 2008

Balloon Glow






It's labor day weekend, which in Colorado Springs means the annual Hot Air Balloon Festival. We opted not to watch the balloon launch Saturday Morning in favor of watching it Monday morning with family. We may regret that. According to the radio, there has never been a more perfect day for the launch then they experienced Sat morning. Monday's launch will occur as long as weather permits. Apparently that may be in question. Oh well.


We did opt to go to the Balloon Glow festivities Sat evening with our friends the Schroeders. During the Balloon Glow, they anchor all the balloons down to the ground, inflate them and then after sunset, blaze the blower flames in unison to light up all the balloons like giant night lights. Everyone can walk among the balloons and join in all the countdowns,"5...4...3...2...1...GLOW!!!" It really was quite fun, and very beautiful. Hard to get a picture though. Either the camera shows the glowing balloons great and blacks everything else out, or the flash catches people in the foreground and blacks out all the balloons. Couldn't get both in the same shot. Here's the best of what I did get.


We stayed to the very end when they started taking down the balloons. The balloon owners were very friendly and would tell us all about the balloons and even let us touch one of them. Kinda fun watching them stuffing those huge things into their stuff sacks. Quite the process. On the way out we ran into a firetruck where the firemen were allowing the kids to climb in and play with the equipment. Very cool...although M got stage fright as soon as she was in the seat. By the time we got back to our car, there was no festival traffic left to speak of. It was great! And M is more excited than I can tell to see all the balloons again tomorrow morning and watch them all take off into the air this time. Let us just pray for good weather!

1 comment:

Art said...

Ok, that is way too cool. They weren't doing that when I lived there. I feel cheated.