The balloons did lift off, but headed South so we didn’t have any come our way this morning.

I did capture a little of the TV show this morning for one reason… the Wells Fargo Stagecoach flew this morning for the first time. It flew for about half an hour and then took advantage of the ‘box’ to land on the field.

It’s a large, complicated special shape and it takes a lot of people to wrangle it down.

So, one more video to say goodbye until next year. It always feels like Christmas once it’s over.

It started off as a beautiful day. When the ascension started it appeared they were going South so we didn’t expect any balloons to come up our way. So, once again, I recorded some of the TV coverage because both Darth Vader and Yoda both lifted off together for the first time.

However, a little later we looked out and, low and behold, they were coming up our way. The wind direction had changed.

There will be a glow tonight if the winds permit and tomorrow morning’s ascension, Sunday, will be the last event of this year’s Balloon Fiesta.

When I shared the competition video a little earlier, I forgot to point out a special pilot. He comes every year and he rides in a chair rather than a gondola.

He’s the only paraplegic balloon pilot in the world.

The balloons did lift off this morning, Friday, but the wind was from the North so they flew South. So we didn’t get any balloons up our way.

However, today was one of the competitions. About 2 dozen balloons lifted off from the North so they could go over the field for the two competitions. One was a ring toss onto a slender pole. Unfortunately, no one was able to do that. The second was a white X target and they tried to toss a bean bag onto the target area. Several were able to do that.

Here’s a screen capture of a little of the competition from this morning.

Since we couldn’t watch balloons this morning, we took Jessie over to the arroyo to the South of us. It’s a place where we can let her run free.

If you look close, you might see tire tracks because this is one of the favorite landing places for the balloons.

Today, Thursday, and tomorrow, Friday, are Special Shape Rodeos where the Special Shape balloons are featured. There are 104 Special Shapes this year so when they go up it’s pretty great.

However, the one thing no one can accurately predict is the amount of wind, especially at the different levels. That was this case this morning. The upper winds were pretty strong and the prediction for later in the morning was the winds would pick up at ground level… about the time the balloons would be landing. That’s a safety concern.

So, they didn’t fly, but they did a ‘static display’ where the balloons inflated. They use tie down lines to help stabilize the envelopes in the wind so people can at least see them.

I captured a little video from the live stream this morning to give you an idea of what it’s like. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.

Another good morning, not quite as good as yesterday, but still good.

When the balloons head North they take one of three tracks based on wind flow. On Monday, they took the track slightly to the West of us. Yesterday, Tuesday, they took the track directly over us (the best). And this morning they took the track slightly East of us, although a few balloons came close.

Here are a few pictures from this morning, including Jessie having a good run in the back. The first is when the sun is just coming up over our mountain.

One of the special shape balloons, Humpty-Dumpty, landed just down the street from us.

Finally Jessie having her run.

Last, but not least a very short video. One of the Rainbow Ryders came very close and looked like it was going to land just behind our fence, but the pilot changed his mind. The video ends with a ‘Balloon Solar Eclipse.’