Balloon Invasion.......

As I left you yesterday, I was feeling badly that the balloons all had taken off and I thought that was going to be it for this Classic.  Then I saw this stray balloon coming around the tree northwest of us and the small dots on the horizon. Click on the photo and see the dots.

As the dots got to be closer my camera is having a hard time deciding on what it should focus on, balloons or landscape.  Apparently in a field northwest of us a group of balloons took off simultaneously to the ones we were watching here on the hill. They were coming in slowly and as one kept watching there were quite a large group of them.

My camera really liked me pointing it this direction as the sky becomes spectacular.

From what I could see was happening. most balloons were going to land on our viewing site.  Those balloons, like the one above who found their balloons too far off course, couldn't land at our site.  This orange one missed the hill.  Can you see the sun shining on the right side of the balloon? He is passing us over our left shoulder. This was the first balloon I had seen coming on the horizon and he would never make it down here.

I now know how the how Classic was set up.  The balloons that took off from our site were headed for another site behind us to land and maybe score points.  The passenger balloons landed there along with the ones who were a part of the contest. The site north us had balloons who were to land with us but if they were way off alignment, they floated on by to the third site. If they missed that site, I assume their  trucks and spotters had to follow them to where ever and pick them up.

Those who were in competition would try to drop a weight with a ribbon on it and try to hit this X that you can see in the grass.  If they hit it bullseye, they received points.  I am assuming there were other X score spots on that third site.   The catch is that this balloon was just for show and it was advertising Simpson College.  He wasn't in the  competition so he just floated directly over the spot and landed just on the other side of it.

This balloon came down low and cold see  that it wasn't going to make any points, so he lifted up and went on to the third site.

Here is a closer view of that balloon. My camera was struggling to capture some of the ones that were so illuminated by the sun.

In order for the balloons to land, they had to let their contained air cool down.  When it cooled down the balloon lowered and you can see it actually deflates some.

When they cooled the temperature they actually would land looking like this.  The crew would grab on to the the basket and hang on until it would stop moving.  Then to keep it from deflating completely  they would have to rewarm the air slightly. In this case they let it totally deflate.  They may have been out of fuel to keep their burners going.

The landings are really neat to see.  If the balloon landed badly, the crew would just drag it along the ground into a good position for the final show of the night.  Night glow will be coming as soon as the sun goes down behind the clouds.

Thanks for stopping by.........