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<\/p>\nI can see why hot air ballooning is so popular. \u00a0 You get to fly, in a beautiful object, on a beautiful day, and play with fire. \u00a0 People always look up and admire your aircraft. \u00a0 Balloonists are so venerated that they have carte blanche to land almost anywhere and be forgiven for whatever disruption they cause.<\/p>\n
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One of the big joys for balloon watchers is the “balloon glow.” \u00a0 The balloons are tethered to the ground, and the huge propane burners that make the hot air are fired at dusk, making the balloon into a giant incandescent light bulb.<\/p>\n
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Like moths, we were all attracted to the scheduled balloon glow last night. I was surprised to see that I was one of a few photographers out with a tripod, since without one it would be difficult to get good photos. \u00a0 Shooting a balloon glow is particularly tricky, since the constantly changing light of sunset and randomly-firing propane burners will confuse automatic exposure meters. I started using a bracket program (where the camera would fire off three quick shots at different exposures) but soon settled on an exposure that I set manually and adjusted every few minutes as the sun went down.<\/p>\n
These events are so brief that it is like watching soap bubbles. \u00a0 For just a moment the sky is perfect and the balloons are all glowing. \u00a0 The people are cheering and smiling as they walk across the grassy field, and then moments later it is dark. \u00a0 The balloons all disappear and there’s nothing left but the fluorescent lights of the vendors off to the side.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day we visited the nearby Balloon Museum, which is small but interesting. \u00a0 It covers all the highlights of ballooning from the first flights by the Montgolfier brothers<\/a> through Japanese WWII-era “Fugo” bombs<\/a> and up to the recent round-the-world flights by Steve Fossett and others. \u00a0 \u00a0 But while the museum was worth a couple of hours, everything seems to pale in comparison to those fleeting moments when the balloons are inflated and flying nearby.<\/p>\n Since the Mass Ascension of Sunday (sounds like a religious event, doesn’t it?) was canceled due to rain, they held it this morning. \u00a0 Since many of the motorhomes which had been running generators at 5 a.m. have now left, we managed to sleep until 8, and awoke to find a virtual shower of balloons overhead.<\/p>\n On the whole, I think that I prefer to wake up at 8 and find balloons in the blue sky as I eat breakfast in my Airstream, than to get up at 5 a.m. and hike down through wet grass to watch them inflate in the dark. \u00a0 I may not be cut out to be a balloon pilot, since I assume that pilotage requires a lot of pre-dawn awakenings.<\/p>\n My major regret is that the Airstream was so disgustingly dirty today. \u00a0 Had I thought ahead, I would have washed it before arriving, so that it would make a better foreground for possible photos. \u00a0 The poor thing looks like it has been through a New England winter. \u00a0 We will have to make a stop for a truck wash somewhere along the way back to Tucson, because I can’t put it away in the carport looking as bad as it currently does.<\/p>\n This afternoon they’ve been inflating the large white gas balloons, which are filled with either hydrogen or helium. \u00a0 These big suckers take hours to inflate, but they can float for many days before landing. \u00a0 I’ve been told that a typical hot air balloon flight requires a few hundred dollars in propane, but a gas balloon takes many thousands of dollars worth of gas. \u00a0 They’re the long-distance racers of ballooning, and the few that are preparing on the field tonight will be doing exactly that over the next few days. \u00a0 One is already in the dark evening sky as I write this, and it looks like a floating moon.<\/p>\n Sadly, our time at the Fiesta is up, and we must leave the RV area on Tuesday morning. \u00a0 The event will continue for another week, so if you are within driving distance of Albuquerque you can still drop in. \u00a0 For our part, we only know that tomorrow we are going somewhere south of here.<\/p>\n Incidentally, we also need to evict a mouse. \u00a0 This week, probably as a result of falling evening temperatures, he scrambled into the trailer and has been living with us for two nights. \u00a0 Eleanor discovered the mouse’s presence by his tell-tale chew marks on the cornbread she was storing in the oven, and the resulting tiny mouse droppings. \u00a0 No doubt this is a happy mouse, enjoying the cornbread and warm surroundings on these cool desert nights, but his happiness will soon come to an end.<\/p>\n The first tactic will be to tow the trailer 200 miles south to a warmer climate. I suspect that mice don’t enjoy the rock-and-roll lifestyle of a moving trailer, and if this one is smart it will decide to bail out at a stop along the way. \u00a0 If not, he may be inclined to leave when we hit warmer temperatures in southern New Mexico. \u00a0 I am hoping these hints will be sufficient. \u00a0 If we can’t come to an amicable understanding with our rodent roommate, I may have to resort to harsh methods. \u00a0 I don’t have anything against mice as long as they are housebroken, but this fellow is clearly not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I can see why hot air ballooning is so popular. \u00a0 You get to fly, in a beautiful object, on a beautiful day, and play with fire. \u00a0 People always look up and admire your aircraft. \u00a0 Balloonists are so venerated that they have carte blanche to land almost anywhere and be forgiven for whatever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3173\/2920616822_856cbddb02_o.jpg\")
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