ALBUQUERQUE BALLOON FESTIVAL-2019
The Albuquerque Balloon Festival is a target rich environment for a photographer. One only has to point their camera in some direction in-order to take a great shot. I have never seen anything like this in my entire life. Then at the end I took a balloon ride, $400.00, for one hour, yes that is correct, it only last for one hour, but I will never forget it. Plus, I took photographs that I would have never been able to take while on the ground.
It was a wonderful experience that I will never forget. I took about 275 shots while there. I can only post a few of them. I would hope these few photographs will inspire you to vist the Festival, which is in October every year, except for 2020, because of COVID-19
The balloon ride was more like floating. You do not have the feeling of falling or rising or even moving. It is similar to parachuting, but not exactly. You are always headed down even after the chute opens and you are just floating along. Here they can add more butane to the fire and make it go up or take away some fuel and have it go down. The wind steers the balloon. For some reason Albuquerque is unique (for balloonist) in the way the steering currents work. The balloonist actually follow a square. You go up so high and you began to move east. Then you go up some more and you start to head west, etc. You go to another height and you can move north. In our case we only went east and west. Eventually we went across the Rio Grande as you can see. However, if you look close you can see Donald Trump building his wall. ha!
Ballooning is not like an airplane ride. They do not come back from where they started. They land out in a field west of Albuquerque. The pilot uses a two way radio to talk to the ground crew as they follow along in a truck with a big trailer to transport the deflated balloon back to base. It was a unique experience
