Ever since I saw photos of the Albuquerque balloon festival in one of the airlines magazines, I wanted to visit one. Plus I have an photo op idea inspired by the Disney movie "Tangled", photo of a couple facing each other with the backdrop of the balloons. So when Sonoma county was hosting one at a drivable distance, I was bound to go. The only hitch: the place was 2 hours away, and the main balloon launch was at 6.30 am. It was a 2 day event and we chose to go on Sunday. I was excited to see Saturday's balloon photos from the event's facebook page. Unfortunately, they cancelled the launch on Sunday for weather reasons, so all we could do was wait in a extremely long queue for tethered ride, and go up a teeny tiny height in a balloon.
Double unfortunately the balloon I chose to stand in the queue for was going up the least distance amongst the 3 available ones. Tethered ride means that the balloons were tied down (by cars). They could only go up as much as the tether rope allowed for. Needless to say, the queue was longest for the balloon that was going the highest. On my part, I tried making a suggestion to the balloon "pilot" to bring the car a bit closer to the balloon, or to loosen the turns of the rope (aka elongate the tether distance), but was told that they could not do it because they didn't want the "fins" of the balloon to bang against other balloons. The pilot was nice enough to tell us about how to lower the balloon. There was another rope tied to the topmost point of the balloon's dome, a gradual yank gently lowers the balloon. However there still is residual hot air in the balloon, and the other volunteers on the ground had to manually pull down the basket to lower it all the way. Another simple trick they used was to let next bunch of people get in the basket before the people whose turn is up exited. All in all not bad for 10$.
The best thing about the festival: Ordinarily, the baskets were quite tall so we needed stools to jump in to the basket. But, one of the baskets had a door to the side, so even people with disabilities could have easily entered that particular basket. This is one of the things I simply love about USA.
California is in a severe drought. But the vineyards were looking all green and regularly watered. Whenever anyone brings up the drought issue, climate-change-deniers point fingers at gigantic manicured lawns in Los Angeles. Sure, lawns are frivolous, but then wine isn't a basic necessity either. I don't mind people using water for agriculture, infact once upon a time California was apparently the fruit bowl of the world. I also agree that the vineyards are probably the only source of livelihood in the likes of Napa and Sonoma. Fundraising activities like this balloon festival should be lauded for efforts to add to non-wine tourism.
Double unfortunately the balloon I chose to stand in the queue for was going up the least distance amongst the 3 available ones. Tethered ride means that the balloons were tied down (by cars). They could only go up as much as the tether rope allowed for. Needless to say, the queue was longest for the balloon that was going the highest. On my part, I tried making a suggestion to the balloon "pilot" to bring the car a bit closer to the balloon, or to loosen the turns of the rope (aka elongate the tether distance), but was told that they could not do it because they didn't want the "fins" of the balloon to bang against other balloons. The pilot was nice enough to tell us about how to lower the balloon. There was another rope tied to the topmost point of the balloon's dome, a gradual yank gently lowers the balloon. However there still is residual hot air in the balloon, and the other volunteers on the ground had to manually pull down the basket to lower it all the way. Another simple trick they used was to let next bunch of people get in the basket before the people whose turn is up exited. All in all not bad for 10$.
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| Me and my roommate went up in the balloon at the centre |
California is in a severe drought. But the vineyards were looking all green and regularly watered. Whenever anyone brings up the drought issue, climate-change-deniers point fingers at gigantic manicured lawns in Los Angeles. Sure, lawns are frivolous, but then wine isn't a basic necessity either. I don't mind people using water for agriculture, infact once upon a time California was apparently the fruit bowl of the world. I also agree that the vineyards are probably the only source of livelihood in the likes of Napa and Sonoma. Fundraising activities like this balloon festival should be lauded for efforts to add to non-wine tourism.
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