The first day!

Now, I had decided to publish this next blog all at one time, not like the last one, when I was just learning my way around on where to put the pictures and such...yeah, well, it wouldn't publish, I was thinking maybe it was just too big. It could also have something to do with where we are located at the moment. I can be looking at my phone and it will have full bars one moment and the next, nothing. So, I'm breaking it down by days and it seems to be working right now. But, now, I'm getting to where I posted a lot of pictures, so not sure if it's going to post in its entirety or not, let's hope so...it looks terrible when I have to break it up...so here we go...

The next morning, Saturday, was the first day of the event. We got up at dark thirty, and you, who know me well, know I hate getting up early, but, I made the effort. :)  I wanted to get over there as early as possible, and we were on the bus at a little after six. They had school buses that were shuttling everyone from the RV park over to the field, so that was nice we didn't have to walk that far. Not that we were really that far away from the field, we weren't, but, since we were probably going to be doing a lot of walking on the field and all around, might as well ride over first thing. The first thing that happens is a few balloons go up at around 5:45 and they are called the Dawn Patrol. They go up and the other balloonists can check the weather and where the air currents are coming from.                               

 This balloon had either gone up and then down or it hadn't gone up at all, was just sitting there lit up. It looked kind of neat and I'd wished we'd been there earlier to see them all launch. Some of the balloons that had launched were flying away towards the northwest. This first day of the event was a memorial to the guy who founded the festival back in 1972, so they had a lot of extra stuff going on, including a flyby with the missing man formation. man formation.




   

But, as the day got brighter, more balloons were coming in and more people started coming onto the field. What's neat about this event is anyone can go right up to the balloons to see what is going on. The more balloons that were being set up, the lighter it got and more and more people were coming in..








As you can see by this picture, the field looks pretty wide open, and as you can see in that one row, they are all lined up and that is how it goes right on down the field. But, like I said, this day was different.


There were people pulling in right and left, unloading their baskets and laying out their balloons and getting out the fans that blow them up. They were getting their chase teams ready and telling each one what they were going to be doing. We finally located our pilot, who was giving instructions to his team. We introduced ourselves and told him we'd be helping him tomorrow morning. We found out that he is a professional balloon pilot and works in Colorado doing this type of thing all the time.

Colin talking to the team

Since we were not going to take our camera with us the next morning, we took pictures of what it takes to set a balloon up for flight.  First you unload the basket, then, lay the balloon out in the field. The burner sits on top of the basket on the supports. We saw them fastening things to those burners, so I know a lot goes into hooking everything up.

They lay the basket on its side and start fastening the lines from the balloon to the basket. Once all that is done, they set the fan out, open up the end of the balloon so the fan can start blowing air to inflate the balloon. On the other end, which would be the top end, they seal the top with velcro fasteners, so the balloon can hold the air in.

 Someone holds a rope that goes from the ground to the top of the balloon, so it can't fly off or rise too quickly and also to center it. Even when the balloon is all the way up, the rope is still held until either they tie it off to the basket or it just hangs in the air. I made this picture rather large so you can see what I mean. The guy in the black coat is holding the rope of the balloon that is all the way up. There is another guy holding the rope to the blue/yellow/red balloon farther away.

When the balloon gets to a certain point, they add the burners in with the fan, that is what allows it to fill out completely and start lifting from the ground.


Once it is all the way up, the pilot has to wait until a referee type person comes by to say they can take off. Sometimes, if a breeze comes up, the balloon will try to fly off, that is where the team comes in to hold onto the basket as best they can to prevent it from going anywhere.

and we have lift off!

Up, up and away!

 We had been to the Yuma balloon fiesta a couple of years ago, this one makes that one look like a backyard event. I could not believe how many balloons there were and the crowd was getting bigger. Here are a few pictures of the different balloons and even some special shaped ones....


                                                   

Here fishy, fishy...

This is her debut at this fiesta

I added this so you could see the wall to wall people

The baby has arrived!

What's amazing about all this is that the balloons go up at 7AM and by 9, most of them are in the air. One of the Boomers told us that today was one of the most disjointed balloon ascensions she had ever seen. They are supposed to go in waves, one row after the other, but, not today. Guess we'll see what happens tomorrow....