Hot air balloons? The most exciting event of the summer!!

Here's something you probably didn't know about me:

I've ridden in a hot air balloon before.

Not just that, but I was also part of a chase crew for many years at our local hot air balloon rally. It's part of an annual festival we have here during the summer. It's no small thing, either. This year, we had more than 40 balloons but we've had more than that in the past. People come from all over the Northwest and West Coast to watch because it's one of the biggest rallies on this side of the country. There's a really super mega huge one down in Albuquerque (sp?) but I've heard from the pilot we've worked with that it can get really scary. Imagine hundreds of hot air balloons crammed into the sky together and bumping into each other, come down on top of each other, stuff like that...it's kind of scary. I would watch but I would never want to fly in that.

Anyway, the festival was this past weekend. We didn't go on Friday morning but we went to watch on Saturday and Sunday. It was a really rare and fantastic year where they got to go up all three days. Usually, because of weather or something, they only get to go up two of the three days. The weather was too perfect this year, so I was really glad for that.
It was really tough to just stand back and watch. After so many years of helping to put those things up myself, it was hard to watch all these amateur crews fumbling around or standing there like they didn't know what they were doing, or doing something that I wish so badly I could do again because it's so much fun. I also had this strange feeling like I was shirking on my responsibilities, spectating when I should have been working. That was funny.

Saturday was a great day. They all went southwest, over the freeway where all the farmland and fields are, and there was a pretty good breeze.
Sunday, there was like zero weather. No wind at all. The balloons took off, hovered in the air, drifted a little, but basically went nowhere. A lot of them landed back in the field they took off from and everyone else landed in other fields and parking lots nearby. It was crazy but it made for some great photo-ops. ^_^!!

Speaking of which, I got some great pictures this year. I took over 250 pictures. You can see some of them here: http://photobucket.com/albums/b386/copy_ninja/
YOU MUST GO AND LOOK OR I WILL CRY!!!!!!!!! ;_;

Normally this is where I would do the "in other news" thing, but there isn't anything else going on. We're going to the State Fair on Tuesday, but there's not much to say about that right now except...well, except that we're going. O.o

And I had Wheaties for breakfast. Cool, huh?

That's all. Bye! ^_^