mission: dawn patrol

warning: the dawn patrol show is not for the faint at heart. why, you may ask? for starters, if you want to catch a bus from the park and ride, which comes highly recommended, one must wake up around 4:30 a.m. (and that was so we could make it to the park and ride at 5 a.m. which was 5 minutes down the road). mind you, it is still very dark outside at this time of day, and the sleep still very much overtaking your body.

so we hitch a ride to the balloon fiesta site, and we wait in the freezing cold until dawn was upon us. as we waited, we did eat some super spicy but ever delicioso breakfast burritos, complete with green chile sauce. this kept our mouths blazing hot and in return kept the rest of our bodies toasty. i was sad when i was completely stuffed with burrito that i could not finish the last two bites for some extra warmth. aunt sue did have some specially delivered kona coffee to last us a little while longer, however.

finally, the moment arrived, and the dozen of hot air balloons began to inflate. they even glowed (still dark) and all of the pilots were announced. one by one, they set off, and thus began the next event, the morning ascension. this is when all 600+ balloons are sent off into the atmosphere one by one and usually takes a couple of hours to complete. it was yet another amazing sight as we gazed into the sky watching the large balloons turn into tiny droplets as they drifted away from the field.

a great experience about this fiesta, as i mentioned in the prior post, is that you get to walk amongst the balloons and capture the entire process of an ascension. you get to see the pilots with their chase teams (the people who pick up a balloon after it has landed somewhere) unload the basket from a truck bed, spread the yards and yards of balloon fabric into its designated area, observe the flame being tested (bring your marshmallows), and finally the inflation. if you have never watched this process being done, let me tell you, it is extensive and takes a great team to pull it off without a hitch.

after the several hours of watching the balloons take off, the adrenaline wore off and sleep took us over once again. we had to nap so that we could take on one more balloon glow in the evening. that one is not worth blogging about because the wind conditions were too high to really have a proper glow. a good dozen or so were inflated, but the rest remained on the ground. i do want to say that the very last fireworks show of the festival was fantastic, even better than the night before, not to mention the amazing sunset we had. all in all, it was a good way to end the 2010 balloon fiesta.

patrick, aunt sue, and i did other things in albuquerque during our stay, and so in my next post i will give you the top 5 things you should do on your next visit to this quirky yet fascinating city.

this is beth signing off.

mission: accomplished

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