19 of 22 – 2024 Fall Trip West Series. 10/9-14/24 Wednesday through Monday. We signed up to attend this event over a year in advance with Adventure Caravans. We chose the 6 day slot that included the “Special Shapes” hot air balloons. We had a wonderful time and would recommend it to anyone interested.
Sunset the first night. Our RV on the right. The Adventure Caravan hospitality tent on the left (with Becky standing out front). Behind me about 1/2 mile from this photo is the launch field where balloons would rise and most often drift directly over us. Just to the right of this photo is a big patch of scrubby desert where some of the balloons would land.
Morning mass ascension with Balloons floating right over our RV. We were very fortunate that the weather was beautiful all 6 days we were there. The balloons were able to fly every day which is often not the case.
A few landed right in with the campers.
Many of the balloons are just enormously huge!
Colorful shapes balloons floating right over the top of us.
From our RV looking toward the launch field. The building at the bottom that the balloons are coming up from behind is the Balloon Museum.
Frankenstein landing in the field right in front of us.
Take the shuttle bus to the launch field in the morning to walk among all the balloons. This photo has balloons on the ground being prepped to inflate, inflated waiting to launch, and just launching.
The officials are called “Zebras” wearing black and white stripes. They control the balloon traffic.
My favorite pic. Balloons rubbing together as they await the signal to ascend.
It’s hard to describe how wild, crazy, beautiful this is in person. Doesn’t look like much on a photo but in person we just marveled that so many huge, almost uncontrollable, bunched together balloons, people, vehicles, and propane burners can all do this at once.
Inflating “When Pigs Fly”
Rainbow Ryders is a popular vendor for rides if you want to go up but you should schedule beforehand. Some people in our Adventure Caravan Rally group went up. Some had a great time and an easy landing. Some had a great time and a difficult landing. We saw lots of landings where the baskets got dragged through desert dirt and thorny bushes for quite a distance. The Rainbow Ryders have huge baskets. They were affectionately called “cattle cars”.
Here’s a “landing” in the field right by our RV. I did not think my bad back was ready to handle that. I wish this was a video instead of a photo so you could see the basket bouncing across the ground being dragged by the balloon.
The “Dawn Patrol” balloons would go up before sunup to report what winds at different elevations were doing in preparation for the “Mass Ascensions”.
Early Morning Mass Ascension as sun comes up over Albuquerque.
“Spider Pig”. Many of the balloons and pilots had “balloon cards” they handed out to visitors or people helping in the launch field.
“Tall Steve” the Flying Penguin floats over the Adventure Caravan tent.
The colorful “ALBUQUERQUE” balloon floated right over the top of us.
Three desert southwest patterned Rainbow Ryder balloons together.
Coming in for a landing.
This colorful balloon named “Plot Twist” came down and landed right in front of the Adventure Caravans tent. The pilot (Steve Coffing) was friends with someone in the group. We got them some coffee and donuts then they lifted back off. On the first day of our rally Steve and crew gave us a presentation on how the balloons work which was really interesting and helpful.
See that radio antenna tower? We didn’t see it go down but a balloon tangled with the guy wires and the tower crashed down one morning. The balloon landed safely, no one was hurt. This was not the first time… 20 years earlier in 2004 a “smoky bear” shaped balloon got stuck on the same tower and could not get loose. The passengers had to climb out of the basket and down the tower to safety.
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