BBs Blog

With a long boring Labor Day Weekend looming ahead of us, I decided to follow Moonie’s excellent example, and Sunday morning Larry and I headed to Alpine for the Big Bend Balloon Bash. This little hot air balloon extravaganza has been held every year since 1987. Each morning of the event, weather permitting, a number of hot air balloons rise from the ground and drift up into the sky. This year the thermals weren’t very good, and none of the balloons got very high, or far from the lift off area. However, watching those colorful balloons rise as high as they did, and drift as far as some did was an experience I am so glad I decided to try.

Part of what made the Balloon Bash so much fun was that Moonie and her husband were attending it too. While we waited for them to get the room Larry and I had reserved for Sunday night cleaned and ready for us we decided to drive out to the RV park and visit with them. We got lost trying to get out there, but a phone call to Moonie had her where we were waiting to be rescued in no time. While our husbands sat and told tale tales, we headed to the Museum of the Big Bend. After enjoying the exhibits and buying a couple of souvenirs we headed off to do a little more sight seeing, and find the stadium where the Fire Concert would be held that evening.

The Fire Concert on Sunday evening was a very unique and interesting combination of orchestrated two part harmony between music, and the flames put forth from the butane burners that fill the hot air balloons. The sound of the burners going full blast drowned out the music where we were sitting, but the sight of the burners doing their thing to the beat of the music was pretty awesome. And once again, thanks to Moonie’s suggestion, I used the video feature of my camera for the first time. The video I kept is at the end of a number, and all you could hear is the crowd clapping in the background as all burners roar at full blast, so I added a little music to the video while preparing it to give viewers a little more of a “feel” of what the Fire Concert was like.

I also took still pictures and videos Monday morning when the hot air balloons were taking flight. I did a couple of voice overs in the finished video so those who have always wondered what I sound like can hear me narrating parts of that video. The first balloon lifted off just as I got out of the truck and started walking towards the area where all the rest of the balloons were preparing for flight. I got a nice little video clip of that balloon going right over the top of my head. I know my eyes were as big as saucers when I shut the video off, then turned around to find a man staring at me. I grinned and said, “Man, that was totally awesome!” The man looked at me like I had a few screws loose and said, “I would have been ducking instead of filming!” And as the still picture by this paragraph shows, while others might have been ducking again, I was busy zooming in under another very low flying balloon.

Click Here to view the video directly from this website.

Click Here to view the video via You Tube