Angel Fire as fun. Three days of flying which was really two due to a miscalculation and funny winds. Better safe than sorry.
Great sponsors and fun crowd of people. We thought this might be our last time going up but that got thrown out right away.
Here are some shots of it with explanations...
Serious birds. All off to the local watering hole.
Mo and Alan striking poses by accident while we wait for our Sponsors to arrive.
Police presence for traffic control.
Morning brief. Lots and lots of people.
More little yellow flowers and the side of my foot.
The static display on day 1 as it was too frisky in the wind department to fly.
Lots of weight on the edge of the basket.
People walked up the taxiway and around the trucks and in the grass. All good sports.
Day 2 and Mo was off first. He just had to.
I'm off with my passengers and family and crew below shooting pictures.
Burning Desire lifts over Black Magic Woman. Everyone going their own special way.
The farthest South balloon. I never could find a wind going that way. Always zig-zagging about then stopping me dead in the sky,.
My passengers enjoying the view though Grandma didn't want to lift the granddaughter up so much. Kids are heavy!
Traffic overhead. Nothing very close though.
A view of Eagle Nest Lake and the fog.
811 call before you dig balloon. Nice view North West.
A broad view. Since everyone went every which way getting a pack shot was difficult if not impossible but this shot just gave me a nice wedge of balloons.
Kisses of Fire dances up close for this picture with the lake behind.
Packing up Mojo in a field on the Girl Scout Ranch. Watch the horse apples!
Burning Desire was closer to those apples. I watched where every foot went.
This weekend we had a framily reunion fam flight. Winds were squirrely and frustrating but with a ton of help, I got off the ground. unknown to me I had torched two spots of my envelope down low to the throat due to the way the wind shifted. That will be fixed this week. We got off and had a fast straight line flight North East then as we were getting ready to drop in and land on a nice green field the winds changed and corkscrewed us to the East then South East then South .. but we came in over some houses and landed in this nice cup of space that the wind was hidden from. Stand up and soft landing.
Here are some shots.
It was very hazy from the fires in Arizona. Made the sunrise special.
Lofting over this balloon. Some false lift but with the Lindstrand burners easily overflown with a squeeze on the burner.
Everyone else is trying to get up and off. Mo helped everyone else out and ended up not being able to fly due to the frisky winds after we left.
Still very hazy. Looking at 11 mph straight North East. Yay! Even though it's not the greatest composition for a shot I liked it because you can see the atmosphere we were cutting through.
Looking back at the struggle!
A fun time but busy flying. It's more fun when you can relax a bit and ground track and play chase the wildlife about. This was all processing. To get to point B you must do the next set of programs...
Today we did day two but the winds that were supposed to be nicer we nothing of the kind. Only one of the balloons in our flight flew and that was a quick hop and an Adams Pop Top drop.
This is a ride balloon. There are four passengers in there I think. One of them ( Girl in tan hat ) does not look really happy.
A meeting of the minds! Its what we do. Stand in the middle of dirt fields and decide who is silly enough to temp the winds. We said no.
Pibal by the moon. Moon going West and pibal going East.
We moved West and North to get some space to do a quick flight. Robert figured he could get up then down and fly low and pop her around where we were first. It almost worked.
Inflations are fun with a breeze pushing your side in. Good control on the throat lines helps out a lot.
Just a little extra on the side of the basket to keep it from running to the end of its tether.
Off they went. Happy people in that basket.
Looking down the valley and Shawn got in the air. From reports, he landed way South of town.
The top popped right in front of me as they got to the road. Nice job. A load of laughs from the basket and some juggling on who needed to exit first.
Basket out in the bushes. Envelope just everywhere.
Winds picking up much more.
The nice thing with loads of crew. It's so much easier to pack up. They could have walked the envelope out and not had one-bit touch the ground.
The basket retrieval was made by putting the truck in four-wheel drive and backing to it. It was still heavy with fuel but that liftgate came in real handy for that. I stayed out of the way.
Packing the envelope back up until the next time.. and hopefully nicer winds.
A really fun time with a lot of fun people.
When I got home we unloaded my basket so I could rearrange my envelopes so they can go to get repairs done without the basket being in the way. I also had to bolt down my carb on my fan. That meant removing the fan cage front.. yeah.. fun.. not. Once that was off I had to wiggle the socket into where the bolt was then tightened them both up... dropping the socket five or six times... but it got done. Putting the cage front back on was a load of fun and I knew I would catch a finger somewhere but didn't and it did go back on. Sadly its close time for a new cage. It's pretty old and gone through three or four different balloons.
A busy couple of weeks.
A few interesting web sites I ran across since I have the time...
Mummy brown is really mummy!
https://www.messynessychic.com/2019/06/20/night-of-the-living-painting/
Cement and its uses. Ahead of his time...
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2019/06/thomas-edisons-forgotten-passion.html
And lastly the pied piper... still no clarity on that ...
https://folklorethursday.com/folktales/a-pied-piper-mystery/
Now to brace for the remainder of the day...
