Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta

 We have arrived!!!  On Saturday we finally made it to New Mexico. Since I wanted to stop at Camping World in Albuquerque, we decided to spend the night and then head down to Elephant Butte on Sunday. What a great decision that turned out to be. It just happened to be the final weekend for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Sunday morning was to be the big launch of the week.  We were up at 5 a.m. to head out to the park and ride to the balloon field.  When we arrived we were amazed at what was before our eyes.

 Right there in front of us was a wonderful, beautiful, amazing sea of designs and colors beyond your wildest dreams. There were balloons of all sizes, shapes and colors. There were balloons everywhere you looked...some were just leaving the ground, some were just starting to be inflated and some were just laid  out waiting for that first blast of hot air to set them free.

 It was amazing to see all of these balloons and their crews making order out of controlled chaos. The balloons were all so close together and fighting for space, yet they all managed to be inflated and launched without any problems. Sometimes, one at a time would rise into the air and at other times they would rise in groups of four or more. We arrived at the field around 7 a.m. and by 8:30 they were all in the air. We heard someone say that there was over 500 balloons and that was easy to believe. The launch started with a single balloon that had the American flag attached to it. After that the balloons were launched by the launch directors to make sure it was done as safe as possible.

 As you can see in the pictures, there were some rather unique and very large balloons. The poor cow was inflated but never left the ground, but it was a very happy and contented cow nonetheless!

As the morning went on more and more balloons were launched and it was amazing how the pilots were able to stay in the area by moving up or down in the air currents.  The sky started to look like it was decorated with hundreds of multicolored jewels hung on invisible strings.

This balloon was huge . It took quite a long time to get it inflated and it was such a sight to see when it finally lifted off the ground and up into the sky. You can get a size perspective by looking at the size of basket beneath the balloon.

We took over 80 photos and these are only a few of them.

Lest they be forgotten, there were balloons to help us remember.

I would like to say one more time that it was a wonderful sight to see. We were so glad to be able to be there and see all of the bee-utiful balloons.