Shreya's world: October 2010

October is Balloon Fiesta month here in Albuquerque. Followers of this blog may recall that, last year, we went to the fiesta and really had a good time. Nevertheless, this year we had initially not given any thought to going. However, we now live almost due south of the Balloon Fiesta Park (about 8 miles away). So once the event started, every morning from one of our north facing windows, we could see hundreds of balloons in the sky, scarcely bigger than pinpricks in the distance, but brightly coloured and exciting. Shreya saw them first. "Lo!" she said to us, pointing. "Lo! Lo!". "Yes, they are balloons, Shreya," I said, and thought no more of it, but after this happened the next day and the next, we decided that we should take her out to see them. Fortunately the event spans two weekends. So we made plans to meet some friends at the balloon park on the second Saturday, bright and early for the 7a.m. mass ascension.

Since Park-and-Ride had been so grueling last year, we decided to drive this time. On Saturday morning, we left our home around 6 a.m. Initially the drive was quick, but as we got close to the park, suddenly we were in the midst of a lot of cars (Surprise!). At 6:30, we were passing a small private parking lot about a mile and a half away from the park. We briefly considered just parking there and walking, but we were in the wrong lane for it, so we drove on. At 7:30, we had moved forward somewhat, but were still waiting to park. Balloons filled the sky around us as we sat in the car, fuming. In the back, Shreya was asleep in her car seat. At 7:55 we were just arriving at the place to pay and enter the parking lot, but by that point we were really frustrated and decided to just go home instead. (It later turned out that our friends had left home even later than we did, but they had aggressively changed lanes and managed to park in the distant lot, probably just a few minutes after we had passed it up, and made it to the park by 7:10.)

As it happened, it was a good day to be at home. Previously we had just seen balloons on the horizon, but on this particular morning, the wind was blowing due south, and just as we drove up home, we saw dozens of balloons flying over our house! So we stood outside for a while and watched the balloons, feeling that the morning was not totally wasted after all. A couple of balloons even landed in the park a few block away, and we went and got a closer look at them, and watched them deflate.

The house on the right is ours.

Lo!

Pfffffft.

Still, we remained enthusiastic about going to the park, and the following day (Sunday), we got up even earlier, left the house at 5 a.m. and at 5:30 we had parked and bought our tickets and were wandering into the park. What a difference being early makes! We watched the "dawn patrol", a line of balloons tethered to the ground, which lit up and glowed in the morning darkness. Then as day broke, we watched balloons take off to the skies. Maybe there weren't as many balloons because it was the last day, and maybe some of the coolest shapes did not ascend that day, but there were still a lot of balloons and we walked among them and waved and had a good time!