Sunday Bird (Balloon) Blogging

With the start of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta pumping even more hot air into the city than our homegrown political rhetoric this weekend, I had to put up a couple balloon shots. And of course they had to be bird balloons:

The local Blog.Espen has a couple photos from this year's Fiesta, including one of a special shapes balloon that is a tree populated by parrots. There are even real birds flying near the balloon.

I haven't actually been into Balloon Fiesta Park for a few years. I have to admit I liked the event much better when it was smaller and less commercialized. Come to think of it, I liked Albuquerque much better in those days as well, when it too was smaller and less commercialized.

I experienced my first Fiesta in 1980, when you could wander over to the site at dawn without horrendous traffic jams and people sold t-shirts off the backs of their pickups. Many more balloons cruised East, over the NE Heights, because there was still alot of undeveloped space for landing. Or they landed in the streets, not yet gridlocked with traffic. I recall an informal event where balloons competed in flying over the Sandias, if you can believe it. And you got most of your balloon pins from actual balloonists, if you were clever.

Now, of course, there's a permanent field with a brand new balloon museum on the site, and a "VIP" deck and tons of concession booths and a massive RV park for tourists. Still worth a visit every few years, just for the rush of being on the field next to all that color and the whoosh of the blowers as balloons are filling and rising all around you. But it just ain't the same. Like Albuquerque itself, the Fiesta is getting more and more glossy and "developed" by the year. And I think we're losing something in the transition. But that's just me.