Sunday was our last day at the Albuquerque Balloon Festival and it was good to be wrapping things up. The 3:30 AM wake up calls made for some very long days; we were on site at 4 AM until 10 PM. The festival itself was a very interesting mix of people. The balloonists have their own little niche culture, though the contingent from Sao Paulo, Brazil were into having as much fun as possible! They revel in shaped balloons and were never without smiles. Others were a bit more military and serious, but almost all were easy to talk to and seemed to genuinely enjoy being at the fiesta.
On the other side of the equation were the frumpy, crabby "fair people" who themselves resembled some of the balloons. More than a few of these types would greedily hoard a fleshy handful of the free beef jerky we were giving out (it clearly said please only take one!) then they would waddle their way over to the Wal*Mart tent. They were in heaven, adorned in powdered sugar stained sweatpants, inhaling jerky packets and surrounded by the familiar sundries of Wal*Mart.
Around 11 AM on Sunday, Stephen and I went out behind the trailer to get some pictures of the balloons landing in the grassy meadow. There were a lot of rough landings thanks to high winds. Stephen was armed with a video camera and I with my new Pentax digital SLR when we looked up from the landing chaos and saw Smokey the Bear's giant head drifting toward the phalanx of radio towers beyond the landing area. Because of the relative size of the balloons it was hard to gauge distance, which is why our jaws dropped when we saw the right ear snag on the top of the 670 foot tower and twist the gondola around and around the structure. All the air rushed out of the balloon and the canvas was torn to shreds. Our hearts were in our throats as three small figures clambered out of the basket and into the inner ladder of the tower.
Thank goodness no one was hurt. There were three riders in the balloon, a sixty something year old pilot and two young boys, 14 and 10. All three descended via the tower. The balloon was utterly destroyed. Poor Smokey was all sorts of busted up though to avoid irony, he made a point of not catching on fire.
Later in the day, another balloon smashed into power lines and yet again no one was hurt. Why don't we ever mention balloons when talking about extreme sports?
