Category: Balloon Fiesta 2018

Here’s the final post about this year’s balloon fiesta. Just some random photos to finish the series.

So anyone planning to come join us next year?

It was hard to take photos and videos while keeping track of everything else going on. Here’s a video I was taking of a balloon slowly taking off, when suddenly I found myself totally in the way of another balloon. “Behind you!” someone shouts, and that’s me you hear saying “Oh my gosh,” as the video ends with a blurry shot of John’s shoes.

Here’s another. A zebra-striped official clears the crowds, and the balloon barely clears the crowds’ heads.

This one will make you want to go for a balloon ride!

Sometimes it’s quite slow getting them off the ground, other times they achieve lift fairly quickly. Here’s why you have to listen to those whistles, oops, I’m focusing on the one slowly taking off and just about got run over again!

It’s the big tourist baskets that are so slow getting off the ground. Come to Albuquerque next year and this could be you!

Another lift-off. This one had just a small basket with two guys. They had plenty of lift, their only trouble was getting the crowds out of the way.

Here’s one I didn’t think was ever going to get off the ground.

At one point I got frustrated and whined like a child when my phone memory exceeded its limit, half-way through the first potentially promising video. That was right after I had about got run over, and before I had any good ones yet. John came to the rescue by loaning me his phone. Thanks John!

After the balloons were upright and people were in the baskets, everyone would wait around for an official dressed in zebra striped clothes to give them permission to lift off.

There were a lot of balloons, and only a few could go at one time, so there was a lot of waiting around. I kept trying to get videos of them taking off, and it was hard to know when they were going to get to go. (I’ll post videos on my next blog post soon.)

Still waiting…

Finally a zebra-striped official would give the all-clear, and start madly tweeting on their whistle to clear the crowds. As the balloons slowly achieve lift, they hoover a few inches off the ground. The ground crew pushes them in the general right direction.

Next Post: videos

Here’s a few of the earliest balloons getting ready:

Here’s someone flaming without the balloon. There was a lot of this going on. I’m assuming they were testing their burners. Was there really that much flame that close to that many people in the dark? Yep.

The mass ascension is the biggest event. Hundreds of balloons are laid out on an enormous field in the pre-dawn, inflated, and sent aloft right after dawn.

It’s a crazy, crowded, madhouse. The field is full of enormous amounts of balloon fabric, meters of tether line, and huge open flame burners. Through all that, the crowd is allowed to wander freely.

Here’s a basket loaded on the back of a truck. These baskets hang from the underside of the balloon and people go up in them. Yeah, seriously. Tourists can go – I think it costs a few hundred dollars for a balloon ride. Right at the top of this photo you can see the bottom of the metal burners.

Here’s a video of a tourist getting into a basket:

Here they are laying a balloon out. Some of them had a big piece of fabric to lay the balloon onto (like this one). Others just lay them in the grass. The balloon handlers are pretty cavalier about the burners (What? Open flame? Toddlers? Whatever). But boy, you do not step on their balloon fabric!

Here’s a video of a ballon spread out on the grass. In this video it’s still quite early in the morning, and still dark out.

Here you can see the burners on top of the basket.

Balloons start out by being inflated with just air with fans. What you’re looking at here is the bottom of the basket in the foreground, and the fan to the left.

Then they start the burners up. Oh, hey, John must have taken this photo because I think that’s the backside of me, in the blue jacket and brown boots. John and I usually take about an equal number of photos when we’re on trips or at events, and I combine them at downloading. So I never know which of us has taken which photos, unless I see one of us in them.

Here’s a video of a balloon righting itself:

A little crowded. 

Everyone was wandering around with their faces to their phone camera (like me). All the while dodging tether lines.

See the lines going across the photo? Those are meters long – hard to tell where they are starting and ending. Those lines start on the ground and jerk upward in sudden movements as the balloons inflate.

Lines on the ground:

Here’s some guys holding lines as their balloons inflate:

Here’s videos that show how much was going on:

Rainbow Ryders is one of the companies that will take tourists up in the balloons.

 

Here’s another short video of the chaos:

Here’s a cool video of a balloon righting in midst of a big crowd, note the lines from another balloon suddenly rising part-way into the video.

Here’s that same balloon, when the basket goes from it’s side to upright.

Here’s a series of photos showing a balloon righting itself on the very edge of the field, away from the crowds. In hindsight I should have spent more time out at the edge of the fields, because I got a little overwhelmed in middle of it all. Plus, handy porta-potties, lol!

The balloon glow is an evening event where they don’t actually fly the balloons. They tether them, and inflate them, and they’re beautiful (and goofy, and funny, and just plain weird).

The Albuquerque balloon fiesta is unusual in that you get to be right up close to everything. It seems dangerous to me with the crowds and small kids and open flames. But it’s an amazing and unique experience and I hope they are always able to keep it that way.

These photos are from the “special shapes” glow (all the crazy types of balloons). Many of them are advertisements for local businesses, others are cartoon or media characters, others are for awareness, or just for fun. I don’t tend to watch TV or movies, so a lot of them I only vaguely recognized, if at all. I think it would be really fun for kids (and adults!) who recognize the characters.

The first few photos are from when it’s not quite dark yet.

The enormous inflated spider on this balloon was quivering in the breeze.

Some of the balloons glowed often and long (a few seconds). Others lit up only rarely and only for the briefest moment. It was hilarious watching all the tourists (me among them) swinging around with our phones to our faces, trying to click at exactly the right time.

I kept trying and trying to get a photo of this guy lit up. I have about half-dozen photos of him NOT lit up.

Finally, I got the bottom half. Eh, wasn’t worth it.

A bunch of us waited a long time for these birds to light up at the same time.