Every fall, the world's largest balloon festival goes down (or is it up?) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Last year during our search for the American Dream we were able to stop by and take in a day's festivities at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.
While the day's main attraction was the mass ascension of over six hundred balloons, I couldn't help but snap some shots of the folks making it happen, the balloon wranglers.
In order just to watch the launch for morning events, you have to get there well before sunrise, 5am or even earlier. For the balloon wranglers the day starts even earlier.
Makes for a bit of an early morning. For spectators the show is pretty well over by 10 or 11am but that's not the case for the balloon wranglers. They've still got to chase down and recover the balloons once they reach whatever destination the wind has selected for them.
In the early days of the fiesta the balloons sometimes managed to come down on nearby military bases, which was less than appreciated. Thanks to the quirks of the present location they mostly come down on or near the launch field these days though.
Pull it down. Pack it up. Get ready to do it again. The AIBF is a nine day event, with some days featuring morning and evening launches, so the life of a balloon wrangler is a busy one.
Wow
Those balloons are so big
I’d love to attend the balloon festival someday
It looks fun!
And there's so many of them that you can wander around. You should definitely catch one if you can, they are a blast.
I’m hearing about ballon festival for the first time
I’m sure everyone there had fun
It looks nice
So much fun, it's definitely worth checking out.
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