Actually, it was far earlier than dawn when we got up this morning. To be precise. it was actually 2am!! These are the sort of things that you have to do when visiting the world's largest balloon festival in anticipation of tens of thousands of people doing the identical thing.
We were coming into the unknown a little because we had decided to use the shuttle service into Fiesta Park and having experienced similar arrangements in the last two years, firstly at the American Grand Prix in Austin, Texas and then the Ryder Cup in Minneapolis, we felt it prudent to get to the shuttle parking lot early. Boy were we early and when we pulled into the 1500 space car park , we had the choice of 1500 spaces! Yes we were the first on site!
It wasn't long before fellow ballooning enthusiasts started to arrive but we did find it funny that we were the very first people into the park of the 80,000+ the organisers were expecting and quite frankly, I think they missed a trick in not presenting us with a tee-shirt each and having all the local news channels there to film the occasion.
We were so early that all the vendors were still setting up stall but eventually, we found one that did have freshly brewed coffee available. I have to use the terms, freshly brewed and coffee rather loosely because actually on tasting it, we weren't sure that it was either! Mind you, the one advantage that it did have was as a hand warmer because despite us believing that the temperature was low 50s,
it actually felt considerably colder! In fact it was perishing and we clearly had under-dressed, a mistake that we won't repeat tomorrow. By the time the sun rose above Sandia Mountain bringing some warmth back into our bodies, hypothermia wasn't far away!
To be honest, all the suffering was worth it because I can say without fear of contradiction that this was a truly incredible experience and totally exceeded the expectations that we had built up over the years. Rather than write much more in this post, a picture they say paints a thousand words and so I have decided to add a few more photos than usual and let them tell the story.
One thing I must mention though is that recently, I went up in a hot air balloon out of York. The crew chief on that flight, Neil Marshall, had been to Alburquerque on many occasions and was kind enough to effect an introduction to the pilot and crew of Dawn's Delight who were one of the 12 selected balloons to participate in Dawn Patrol, the spectacular launch before dawn breaks.
We said our hellos to the crew and were kindly invited back to tonight's event to grab some food with them. However, when we saw the number of people with them this evening we decided that discretion was the better part of valour and quietly left them with friends and family to enjoy the event. Mind you, we probably didn't miss too much because pilot Duey cooks the sausages at the same time as inflating the balloon! Apparently they are cooked in five seconds!!
More chat from the Balloon Fiesta in tomorrow's dispatch.
We were coming into the unknown a little because we had decided to use the shuttle service into Fiesta Park and having experienced similar arrangements in the last two years, firstly at the American Grand Prix in Austin, Texas and then the Ryder Cup in Minneapolis, we felt it prudent to get to the shuttle parking lot early. Boy were we early and when we pulled into the 1500 space car park , we had the choice of 1500 spaces! Yes we were the first on site!
It wasn't long before fellow ballooning enthusiasts started to arrive but we did find it funny that we were the very first people into the park of the 80,000+ the organisers were expecting and quite frankly, I think they missed a trick in not presenting us with a tee-shirt each and having all the local news channels there to film the occasion.
We were so early that all the vendors were still setting up stall but eventually, we found one that did have freshly brewed coffee available. I have to use the terms, freshly brewed and coffee rather loosely because actually on tasting it, we weren't sure that it was either! Mind you, the one advantage that it did have was as a hand warmer because despite us believing that the temperature was low 50s,
it actually felt considerably colder! In fact it was perishing and we clearly had under-dressed, a mistake that we won't repeat tomorrow. By the time the sun rose above Sandia Mountain bringing some warmth back into our bodies, hypothermia wasn't far away!
To be honest, all the suffering was worth it because I can say without fear of contradiction that this was a truly incredible experience and totally exceeded the expectations that we had built up over the years. Rather than write much more in this post, a picture they say paints a thousand words and so I have decided to add a few more photos than usual and let them tell the story.
One thing I must mention though is that recently, I went up in a hot air balloon out of York. The crew chief on that flight, Neil Marshall, had been to Alburquerque on many occasions and was kind enough to effect an introduction to the pilot and crew of Dawn's Delight who were one of the 12 selected balloons to participate in Dawn Patrol, the spectacular launch before dawn breaks.
We said our hellos to the crew and were kindly invited back to tonight's event to grab some food with them. However, when we saw the number of people with them this evening we decided that discretion was the better part of valour and quietly left them with friends and family to enjoy the event. Mind you, we probably didn't miss too much because pilot Duey cooks the sausages at the same time as inflating the balloon! Apparently they are cooked in five seconds!!
More chat from the Balloon Fiesta in tomorrow's dispatch.
 |
| It Was An Early Start! |
 |
| The First Car In The Car Park |
No comments:
Post a Comment