Balloon Fiesta

The title photo is a pic of Julie enjoying the inflating Cathedral Balloon sponsored by a Swiss group. It was a cold morning, so I contributed my famous orange coat, since I still carry a good amount of baby fat to keep me warm! I have to say, she looks pretty great in it! It was my first time enjoying the whole balloon fiesta. Jim hooked us up with some great tickets so we got in free pretty much as much as we wanted to go. We went one time alone, one time with the Roeloffs and one time with Mom & JIm. It was fun, except for the getting up at zero-o'clock. There is a morning session from 6am-around 10am and an afternoon session from 4pm-10pm. One day, Daryl and I decided to go to the evening session at the last minute. Big mistake. We dropped Grif off with Mom and planned to spend an evening spoiling Phoenix with attention. Due to weather forecasts, everyone in Albuquerque decided Thursday night would be a good time to go, too. So, we ended up waiting in a car line getting frustratingly rerouted by unprepared policemen for over 1 1/2 hours, only to watch the finale fireworks from the entrance of the parking lot. But, we kept in good spirits and Phoenix was a good sport about the whole evening. He really loves the balloons. Daryl's highlight was watching the wood chain saw carving contest. It was pretty impressive. They had the giant 8 foot tall hunks of tree that they had a weekend to carve their masterwork. In between, they had three "quick carves" where they were given smaller blocks with themes like "fishes" and alloted one hour to carve something that would be auctioned off. One guy was amazing and carved a life sized accurate portrait of Gandi! The other guys didn't have a chance. Anyway, we hope more people can join us next year. It's worth a trip to see it at least once in your life. It's very surreal to be amongst the rising balloons in the morning light. The two surprises of being there in person is the whoosh of the burners as the balloons fill and rise and the welcome warmth put off by the burners as they glow. It's an amazing amount of heat. My writing that doesn't ruin the effect, though. It's something to be experienced in person.