I decided to go down to the balloon fiesta a couple of times to see if I could get some great shots of the balloons. One of the times was the Nite Glow. The kids had a great time - they had lots of vendors and lots of music. The lighting up of the balloons started much later than the schedule had indicated, but we had a blanket laid down and were quite comfy. When they started lighting up the balloons, the kids just went nuts. It was so cool for them. We stopped and got ice cream on the way home and it was really a fun night.
That Sunday morning, I met up with a fellow photog friend in an attempt to get some shots of the mass balloon launch. There had been several cancelled launches earlier in the week, but the weather was ideal Sunday morning. We thought for sure we would be getting some great shots. Tons of people were up on the rim with us. Annnnnnd the launch got cancelled. I still have no clue why - there was no wind, no rain, and not a cloud in the sky. We were extremely disappointed. They ended up doing a "tether" launch, where they let the balloons go up a little bit and then bring them back down. Gotta do something to keep all of those thousands of people happy, right? Overall, I would have to say this year was a major fail for the Balloon Classic. I think they had ONE successful launch. Not very good odds considering how many they had scheduled.
