Balloon Fiesta, Part 2

When you get to the balloon fiesta late (and didn't have time for breakfast), one way to ease the hunger pangs is to hit up the SPAM mobile! They have free samples of freshly-fried spam on little rolls. This was a definite "winner" in R's book (not so much for me--I dunno about the SPAM).

By the time we got there for the "Special Shapes Rodeo," most of them were already up, up, and away... So I quickly fumbled for my camera, fought back my tears of frustration, and snapped off a few of the receeding shapes. They are: Pepsi can, Energizer bunny, Noah's Ark, a NASA space shuttle, a lighthouse, the American flag, and the same turtle as last time--way, way off in the distance.

Okay, so we took this pic on the other day we were at the fiesta, so what? The little bees are too cute to leave out, although it's too bad we couldn't get a good picture of them both facing us!

Here are a bunch more special shapes. Obviously that's a panda bear. Off in the background are also: Scarecrow, daisy, "Forest Friends" (tree trunk w/ animals), a tropical fish, and something big and pink (oh, it's a pig with wings)
Yeah, look at my handsome silly man!
The obvious self-portrait.
The sun was R's favorite. After all the special shapes took off the festivities of "key grab" and "bean-bag toss" started! There were hundreds and hundreds of balloons bumping and racing past us! They'd get as close to the ground as possible to drop bean-bags onto marked targets. It was really awesome!

Balloon Fiesta

The balloon are stretched across the fields. Practiced crews unroll and unravel the lines and material. Fans blow hot air to start the filling.
Slowly, so slowly, they begin to rise. You can see the colorful shapes shift and fight for space.
As they take shape, the riders prepare for boarding. They patiently burn fuel to provide more hot air.
One balloon lifts off. Another quickly follows. Soon, they each catch a draft and float off into the clear blue sky.
The masses disappear into the horizon. But many balloons remain. A comical turtle rises from his sleep.
And a handsome young man is nearly bowled-over by a rapidly inflating balloon.

Pictures

Okay, so these should've been on the last post... but I didn't have the time to upload to photobucket... then "paste" them all on here... But, at least you get to see them now.
Here I am at the fair... yes, that is a deep-fried snickers in my hand! I'm not too proud of the fact that I really did eat it (R only "helped" me with one bite).
I got a kick out of the lemonade stands at the fair. There was this one, and another that was also "lemon-shaped" but opened up (like pacman). They look just like the stands in that silly little game "Lemonade Tycoon" (or whatever it's called)!




Here's R lugging around a huge bag of delicious apples (from Dixon Apple Orchard, NM). We didn't actually pick our own apples (the bagful), but we did get to pick a few from the red trees.

This was taken on a very strange, and eerie morning, which I'm told was a bit of "freaky weather" (because it's never that foggy in NM). (You can see a different pic from almost the same place here. It's the 2nd pic.)

This was a Friday night at a high school football game. My little sister is one of the little turquoise girls out there (color guard). That's right, she's following along in my footsteps! And, I must say, I am proud of myself for sitting through the first half of the game--I didn't even like high school football when I was in high school!

Finally, in my picture-taking frenzy, I managed to get this pic of the moon rising over the mountain! I zoomed-in as much as the camera can do, then set the timer and put the camera on a fence post. The picture doesn't even do it justice, though. This full moon was gorgeous over the mountain!