Balloon Fiesta

We interrupt our usual broadcast to tell you about a lot of hot air.
Balloon Fiesta is the largest balloon festival in the world. It's a once a year deal in Albuquerque, at about this time of year.
Dale has been telling me about it for the past couple of weeks. According to him "We used to go there every year before the boys got older..." Then, a week ago, I happened to talk to Brian (ranger) and Matt (fee collection). Brian said that they go down there every year- "It's great for the kids!", and Matt, the proud owner of a huge new pickup hooked up to an ever huger new RV, and the proud father of two young boys, couldn't agree more- "It's packed with more people than you'll ever see in your life, and the traffic is horrible- we've stood in line for 2.5 hours on the highway once, and that was just for the parking lot, but since you can see a lot of it from the highway, and we were lucky enough the wind made them drift over us- the boys were pretty occupied and didn't drive us crazy. Really, you should go."
That evening, Molly had mentioned she wanted to go and was looking for someone to tag along for the two hour drive (on a normal day, without any traffic), so the issue of transportation was solved too.
So this is how I found myself heading down towards an event that stood against everything I was ever brought up on- There was an entrance fee involved (additional to the parking fee), a huge crowed and a line to get in. Every person that I spoke to about it said it was "great for the kids" which should have given me every reason to run from it like the plague. I could just see my dad going "Have I thought you nothing??!".
Well let me just start by saying it was great for the kids. Kids of all ages. Including this kid of 26 years of age. The drive down took us exactly two hours. I have to hand to Molly, she did an excellent job passing everyone on the highway. Even though her habit of not trusting the rear view mirror, and actually looking over her shoulder every time she changed lanes did make me feel slightly uneasy for the first hour and fifty minutes. The sign for Balloon fiesta pointed towards exit 254, and the directions Molly had downloaded said exit 253 (the next one). We had a moment of uncertainty, but the lines of cars at the first exit made us vote in favor of Google directions. That ended up being the wiser of choices. We only crawled in a line of traffic for about 10 minutes. We were safely directed through the maze of blocked streets and parking isles by a swarm of, courteous yet firm-expressioned, law enforcement officers from a variety of agencies, most of which were mounted on golf carts, and were finally taxied to a parking spot by a volunteer parking attendant that flagged us with two flashlights as if we were driving a 747. The line for tickets wasn't too bad either.
When we walked out to the field, past the food booths and gift stands (I am never going to be the proud owner of a hat shaped like a hot air balloon. No matter how catchy the slogan might be), Molly and I looked at the endless ocean of people and the three Wells Fargo balloons at the far end and mumbled to each other, as if trying to convince ourselves- "hmm... this is nice...kinda". We walked around for a bit and found an area with a bit less of a crowed and started asking ourselves if we should have brought a Frisbee. There were balloons all around the field, but they were all spread on the ground and the crews were fiddling with them, but didn't seem to be in any haste to get them out of their two dimensional state on the soft, very horizontal bed of grass. This lasted for about half an hour, and just as I was about to offer we walk over to the chainsaw carving tent that was set up at the other end of the field as a side attraction, an over enthused announcer got on the speakers and said "Pilots, you are GO for cold inflation". Suddenly, from all around us came the combined sound of giant industrial fans and the OOhh and Ahh of the crowed. Starting slowly and slowly taking shapes, colorful sheets of nylon material were rising all around us. It started as wide, very moderately-rounded domes slowly gaining height and then they grew limbs and slowly filled the sky line. And it's happening all around you. That's when everyone pulled out their cameras and fired away. The good thing about taking pictures of hot air balloons, especially when they are so close ad all around you, is that very quickly you start pointing your camera up and the crowed is no longer an issue. No one is in your line of sight.
As cool as it was seeing this big inflated tents- these still were crippled creatures- held up by the crews and with their baskets fallen on their side. It wasn't until the speakers shot out "GO for hot inflation" that the balloons started reclaiming their glorious graceful floating ability. Giants of hot air and fabric of all shapes and variations of mainly once size- "big", were rising all around us as the sun was going out of service for the day. It took about twenty minutes for the skyline to fill up with air born giants. Nothing actually left the ground- they don't fly at night, but the balloons were all hovering over the endless crowd of people. I never thought anything could hide sow many people. They all looked like balloons (obviously), except for Darth Veda- Which really looked like the duke of darkness hovering over the crowd.

When it got dark the sky was occasionally lit by the count down burn. All the balloons firing their burners at the same time. Great fun.
After about an hour, they started deflating. A fireworks show was put on, but it did not posses the ability to hide the crowd. Lines and lines of the average consumer-type American fair-fairing families magically produced themselves in front of the food tents, to the sound of the air-force band that was brought in to set the tone for the after party. At that point my up-bringing caught up with me and I was ready to leave. Molly, on the other hand, wanted the experience to last to it's fullest and we joined the herd for nachos and a burger. Can't complain about the quality of the food, but that was hardly the highlight of the evening.
With the crowd, the two-hour drive, the 10$ for parking, 6$ entrance fee, 5$ burger, and the line getting in and out I can still easily say-
It's was great for the kid. This kid.