Balloon Fiesta

…and I was ripped from it, the wonderful calm and blackness that was my exhausted sleep. We left Denver just for this morning but I'm not even gonna lie to you, I thought long and hard about just laying right there and falling back asleep. Instead, I woke Brian up and in an almost angry silence we drove to Albuquerque's International Balloon Fiesta. At first glance, through the fog of early morning vision we were unimpressed. We saw several balloons in the sky but not much else. We parked and walked to the main field and around a final bend we saw it—hundreds and hundreds of balloons. A sea of colors and shapes lay before us, with random balloons ascending into the sky and behind it another and behind it yet another. The full scope of the sea was not measurable with our eyes, just like the ocean, yet as we walked through the rising balloons we felt as though it was endless. The sound of gas igniting huge flames dancing madly into the sky was all around us, I felt again a child. Oh how I wanted to run and jump into a basket and fly away with these people, anyone, I wanted to cut the rope or toss the weight bags off the side and float away into the sky. Everywhere in all the sky was a balloon and behind it and above it and below it. We would sit and watch an entire balloon be set-up, from the ground to the sky, and no sooner than they began their slight lift-off the ground than they were gone. For hours we walked around the field, never tiring of the colors, never tiring of the urgent ignition of gas, never tiring at all until the last balloon was in the air and all that was left was the very grounded observers, all eyes looking upwards, fixed upon the distant dots in the sky.

(click to enlarge)




(Mom, Jamie & Kel this ones for you)