Up, Up, and Away

Okay, I'm tired and a little burned from hiking with Strix today down in the Jemez mountains.  We got a lot of great pics, though, and I'll share them later.  For now, I'm still playing catch-up.

Yesterday, we went out to Farmington Lake to watch the hot air balloons go up.  They do it every Memorial Day Weekend.  The wind goes east to west over this lake in the morning, so they take off on the east bank and go out over the water.  This year, the wind was high, so they were really booking.  They usually do "splash-and-dash" moves, touching the bottom of the gondolas to the water before taking it back up, but only a couple of them were willing to try it at those speeds.

Sunrise

The balloons go up early in the morning, 6:30, to be precise, while the winds are supposedly not as turbulent.

Launch Area

A view of the launch area from our peak on the south shore, which overlooks the lake from a bluff that's about a hundred feet high.

Just a couple shots of the lake.

Up, up, up, and away.

Some more shots of this colorful balloon.  The fourth pic shows it touching down in the water for a splash-and-dash.

The couple of times we've been, there were people in boats directly in the path of the balloons, presumably to get a better view.  Personally, I would be worried about getting smacked by one of the gondolas in an attempted splash-and-dash.  Also, I think the view we have from the bluff is better than looking at the bottom of the gondola, anyway.

Geese

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This flock of geese came by to check out the competition.  They didn't seem impressed, but then, they were the ones flying east for the summer, so maybe they're not real bright.

This civic event memorializing fallen soldiers brought to you by Re/Max, the official sponsor of anything involving balloons.

And some of the other balloons we saw before we left.  Lemon-lime almost did a splash-and-dash in the third pic, but I don't think he ever made contact.  The wind was really high, and that balloon was booking.