ALBUQUERQUE BALLOON FIESTA

PHOTOS BY JAMES FANNING

THE ANNUAL  ALBUQUERQUE BALLOON FIESTA

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The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta began Saturday

morning, October 3 at dawn, here at Balloon Fiesta Park.

(The early morning October temp will likely be 57 degrees, 

a bit warmer than usual this year....light jacket weather....)

Once just a pasture north of own, the "new" venue now has a 

museum, nice grounds with lawn, several modest administration  

buildings and by now a "carnival-like" line, 3 blocks long---

of vendors' shacks and tents. It once featured a Mexican 

restaurant.

At this awesome and exciting ROW of little "shoppes," you can

fill out your balloon pin collection; you can buy balloon jackets, 

sweatshirts with hoods, or most certainly find a dozen different 

types of burritos---the unofficial breakfast food of the early-riser-

attenders. They will likely be pricey---maybe $8.95.

Sort of overlooking the balloon field---to the east--is a parking area

for RV's and it will be shining (as seen from the air) with rich 

symbolic-silver AIRSTREAMS, with some FIVE-WHEELERS

sprinkled in. 

Traveling retired folks, with cash, rent a costly space 

for a week and thus watch from their lawn chairs---each morning's
mass "ascension," while having their Folgers!

Six to seven hundred balloons from all over the world will take to 

the air---kind of in shifts. The field itself becomes a hotch-potch

(British) as the crowds mix right in with the balloon pilots and 

inflater-crews. "Packed" is an understatement!

If the rain and wind don't interfere (as they sometimes do), there 

will be a  "Special Shapes Rodeo," evening events such as "Balloon

Glows," a key-snatching-contest-for-a-free-car, parachutists, and 

"I-don't-know-WHATALL!"

We've been twice, back in the nineties. Our dear neighbors (who,

alas, finally retired and moved back home to Florida,) took us both

times...as they did to all kinds if events, with great skill and ease. 

(Traffic and parking at 4:30 a.m. are only for the experts.)

They were always fun, what ever we did...but they had a habit of getting

their money's worth---and whatever they attended, they didn't leave until

it was OVER....as the saying goes---"THE FAT LADY HAD SUNG
AND THE LAST DWARF WAS TOSSED." 

It is the type event that children never forget...the younger, the better. 

Standing for four or five hours is a bit grueling for older citizens.

The first big balloon ascension in Albuquerque, as I recall, was in 1973. 

Thirteen balloons took off that fall from the State Fair grounds. My 

office at that time was on Jefferson, just north of Central--a  mile or so

west of the Fairgounds. 

The big balloons oft came right over my office--low-- in those

early years...with that strange sound (as they fired their burners) like that

of a giant exhaling.

The balloons later went up from Coronado Shopping Center for a year or
two, until the big move to the new grounds, north of town.

Comment from Donna:

When our boys were little, we used to see balloons in our neighborhood
looking for a landing place. If we saw a balloon near the foothills looking
to land, we'd get in the car, chase it down, watch it land and see the 
balloonists pack up.  The boys loved it! I once had a balloon land on the
playground of the school where I was  teaching.  I was in the middle of a
lesson, and we all heard the tell-tale "swoosh", looked out the window,
and POOF!  My students vanished like smoke and were soon crowding
around the balloon in frenzied excitement.  Well, it was hard to restore
order after that!

A crowd favorite, especially for the kids, is the Special Shapes Rodeo which 

features several dozen fascinating balloons...such as cows, Mickey Mouse,

spiders, a stagecoach, a milk bottle, two bees .... memory fails to 

recall them all.

The fiesta event ends Sunday morning, October 11, with a mass ascension at 

dawn.

(An interesting thing: over the years, the  security folks at the fiesta found
they had a plethora of "lost" children being brought in, sans parents.

They have developed a system whereby you can sort of register//serial
number// stencil your kid with name-address-phone number to alleviate
this problem.

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MIL

9/30/15