Balloon Fiesta #1

First, let me apologize for taking so long to blog about our vacation. I have a couple of not so good excuses. The first being: I'm tired! it's hard to catch up the 2 hours I lost and try to keep up with Landon at the same time. The second reason is that while we were gone our camera broke so most of the pictures we took were with mom's camera and she is mailing me the pictures, there are a lot, tomorrow.






I was concerned about the flight but Landon did great...even better than great. We read books, played with play-dough, ate and ate and ate, and best of all we looked out the window. During our layover we let him stay out of his stroller as much as possible. As you can see Travis and Landon had fun on the moving walkway.




Our first day at the balloon fiesta started very early. We were there by 5:30 a.m. The dawn patrol went up at 5:45 to check the wind conditions before the o.k. was given to the other balloons to take off. I'll tell you a sad but interesting story about the pyramid shaped balloon in this picture a little later in the blog. The dawn patrol was beautiful. It was still dark outside when they took off so they glowed like Christmas lights. Only about 12 balloons were involved.


At about 7:00 the Mass Ascension began. That is when all of the other balloons began blowing up and taking off. There were about 650 of them. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. There were so many of them it took almost 1 1/2 hours from them all to blow up and take off. Landon couldn't decide what to look at. The best view was from Travis' shoulders. It was as much fun watching him watch the balloons as it was to watch the balloons themselves. We taught Landon how to sign "balloon" on the plane trip to New Mexico. The following video is of Landon signing balloon during the mass ascension.





Now for the story about the pyramid shaped balloon. Toward the end of our first morning there we meet the people who fly that balloon. They have a basket that attaches to the balloon as well as a seat. They let Landon sit in the seat so we could take his picture. They were very kind and let Landon play with their ropes and bags that contained the envelope, which is the balloon its self. In the picture are two of the guys who work with that balloon. Friday after we arrived home we heard about a balloon accident which killed on man and injured another. It happened to be that balloon and we are still unsure if the men in the picture are the ones who were in the balloon at the time of the accident. Here is a link to the information we have so far:

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/balloon-fiesta-accidentother-media-source/72155807

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/man-killed-new-mexico-balloon-fiesta-accident

We pray for the man that survived and both of their families.

Well, That is going to be all for now. I will tell more of our adventures in a day or so. We saw more than just the balloon fiesta and recommend this trip to anyone who needs a vacation.