Balloons Away!

The summer social calendar for Yuma was virtually empty, but now has filled with the change of the weather and the coming of the winter visitors, or snow birds as they are affectionately known. We have been busy working on our house since having moved in nearly two months ago. We decided to take a break and join the throng to the local festival of Colorado River Crossing Balloon Festival the weekend before Thanksgiving.

The public was invited to various activities starting that Friday and ending on Sunday. We decided to go to the Saturday morning balloon launch where some thirty hot air balloons were to be launched in the cool morning air.

Saturday morning was a little cloudy as headed to the West Wetlands Park where the event was to occur. We saw that one balloon had launched, but many others where in various stages as we approached the area of the part. The park was pretty and green unlike the weekend of July 4th when we rode are bikes around it. The balloons were launching from the Frisbee Golf field that Randy had noticed on that previous visit.

Because of the costs involved with hot air balloons, many of them have corporate sponsors such as State Farm Insurance, Farmers Insurance, Applebee Restaurants, etc. We first watched the filling of the balloons from a distance and then watched them launch. The “Bee” was interesting to see being inflated with its antennae, wings, and other parts. It was the only one that did not look like a standard hot air balloon.

We soon went down to the field and watched how the balloons were prepared for launch. These balloons all seemed to have experienced crews whose truck trailers held all of the balloon gear. A wheeled cart held the balloon as they unloaded it and spread it out. Next they brought out a large gasoline powered fan to do the initial inflation and hooked up the wicker basket for the pilot and crew. Finally the propane powered flame was ignited to get the balloon towered up and ready to launch.

We watched as the balloon called “America” was laid out, inflated, and launched. It was the only one that had pennant flags attached. It also had a number of patches on the balloon envelop. It must have had a hard landing somewhere, perhaps in some trees.

The event was soon over. We still had plenty of work at the house. We ended up being too tired to go to the stadium and watch the evening “Glow” where the balloons would light up the night with their flames. We were coming back from the home improvement store when the traffic started backing up from left turns for that evening event. We were able to see the fireworks from our house as they exploding at the conclusion of the event. We will probably attend it next year.