Thursday, June 30, 2005

Hot Air Balloons

(originally posted on fishbowlinsider yahoo!group 6/30/05)
My 2 1/2 yr old son, "W" loves Hot Air Balloons. And thats a good thing because we live in Albuquerque, New Mexico...Today we got started on our morning walk a little earlier than normal. We were out of the house by 6:45am and headed down the bicycle path that goes along the volcanic rock mesa. Far off in the distance you could see a hot air balloon. "W" immediately saw it and made sure I knew it was there. It was going south and we were going north so it kept getting closer. "W" kept pointing it out,soon his little sister "S" noticed the balloon too. They both watched it in the sky get closer and closer until at one point it was right above us. It was funny to look down at my kids in the stroller, while I was looking down at them they were looking straight up past me into the sky. They watched it go behind us, and "W" continued to turn around to see where the balloon was till it went around the corner of the volcanic mesa.We have a special thing here in Albuquerque. There is something about the sheer granite rock face that makes up the mountains on the east side of town and the volcanic rock mesa on the other side of town that creates a wind pattern they call "The Box". Albuquerque is world reknowned as THE place to fly a hot air balloon. The Box allows a hot air balloon to go up to a certain elevation and go one direction and then up higher to a different elevation to go back the other direction. Therefore drawing a "box"in the air. The first weekend of October every year the city of Albuquerque is bombarded with tourists from around the world for a celebration called "The Albquerque International Balloon Fiesta". We have close to 500 hot air balloons from around the world all in one place and its a week-long festival. Kinda like the state fair. Every morning at 6am during the week all 500 balloons lift off into the sky at the same time. It is quite a sight to see.Every morning during the year if you are awake and outside at the right time of day you have a pretty good chance of seeing a few hot air balloons go by overhead. Whenever one goes over the house and "W" points it out to me I hope beyond hope that as long as we live in Albuquerque he'll never grow tired of hot air balloons...
Posted by ABQ Mom :: 6/30/2005 07:32:00 PM :: 1 Comments:

Post a Comment

---------------------------------------