Day 10 – Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta – Mass Ascension

We got up at 4:30 am to catch a shuttle at 5:00 to the Balloon launch site.  We arrived and found that we were one of the earliest cars in the parking lot and quickly moved to a shuttle.  We are all together, but once at the festival grounds, we'll probably split up.

We are about 15 miles to where the balloons will launch.  It was dark when we get there and before the regular balloons launch, there are some balloons that launch in the dark and then wait until there is enough light to land.  The night launch balloons all in a line ready to launch and are lighting up the night.

The balloons from the dark morning ascension have lights hanging down from the baskets, almost like landing lights.  All of the balloons were firing their burners at the same time when I took this picture.

With the sky lightening, the other balloons begin the launch process.  Oh my!  There are over 200 balloons here.   With some specialty balloons mixed in with the regular balloons, this is an awesome sight.  Here you can see a couple balloons ready, one behind the flame has the head of a bison.

Balloons are beginning to launch.  You can see some balloons are already up in the air while others are still lying down still in the inflation process.  In the bottom right you can see the double bison head balloon.

There are specialty balloons also in the mix and this one is beginning the process to inflate the envelope.

More and more balloons are beginning to lift off and others are beginning to inflate.

The sun is now up and we have good views of the balloons.

Some of the balloons ended up directly overhead.  They are beginning to have many balloons in the sky.  We can even see a couple of balloons with "Farmers" on the envelope.

Balloons are beginning to fill the sky.  Even an ice cream cone balloon can be seen while back on the ground more balloons are being filled.

Here is the inside of one of the balloons from the top of the envelope looking back to the basket.  Looks like a merry-go-round.

When pigs fly; yea right.  Wonder if this is an advertisement for a BBQ place?  Today is mostly for regular envelopes, but I guess some of the special shapes still go up.

Here is the merry-go-round balloon filled along with an elephant standing on its front legs and the flying pig.

Check out the clock just lifting off of the ground.  Hey, its 19 minutes after 8; must be time for breakfast.

Here’s the inside of one of the balloons.  The sun is up and bright so you can see the shadow of people on the inside of the balloon.

Look at all of the balloons.  Other than the ice cream balloon, I don’t see any other special shapes.

I see shadows on the inside of a balloon.

A butterfly is getting ready to soar.  When the balloons are up, they go down range, then rise high into the sky where the winds would reverse their direction and return to just beyond the launch site.  They would then drop back down and follow the process over again.  That is why we are seeing some of the balloons again.

A zebra balloon can be seen in amongst the other balloons.

Elvis is in the sky!  Who loves you baby?

Now we are getting different balloons in the picture and you can see 4 different specialty balloons in flight.

If you can believe it, even more balloons.

Not sure what this balloon was, but she looks like a happy elf.

It looks like the butterfly is going down for the count while a couple of bees are inflating.  Just to the right is “spider pig”.

A close up of the Darth Vader balloon.

Nearly at the end of the balloon flights, this Zebra balloon just snuck by.

A winking cat and I don’t know what that other thing is. 

Put your left hand up. 

Look at everything going on here; a tourist penguin, space man, tweedy bird, and Darth Vader.

Here a panda bear balloon is poking its head out from behind a frog.

As we were leaving the field, we saw the lion king.  As you can see it is much later in the morning and most of the balloons are gone.  Some like the lion king will not fly but are only inflated for show. 

I should point out that the field for the balloon launch was about 4 football fields in size.  You could walk around the balloons if you wanted or stay on the sidelines.  This place is massive and you could be in the middle of the field and look all around at the balloons.  At one point during the morning, there must have been over 100 balloons in the air.

Tomorrow we plan on going to going to Old Town Albuquerque with all of the other people that are on the RV trip with us.