Here's another from yesterday, since I pretty much got crap today. It's been a pretty rough week for the Albiquerquie Balloon Fiesta. I just got here yesterday, so I missed the first half of the festival. Apparently, I didn't miss much. It was cancelled a couple of days for bad weather. the winds have been strange and unpredictable. Tonight's balloon glow was cancelled. I pretty much called that one a couple of hours ago when I opened my door and the wind grabbed it, yanked the door handle out of my hand and flung the door open! As I had said in my previous post, the winds were strange this morning. I just took a walk down to the balloon field and caught the official news cast. I didn't just watch it on TV. I actually watched them filming it. Apparently this morning, as the strange winds started picking up, one balloon hit the ground, bounced back up and got snagged in some electric wires. The basket burst into flames. Both guys either jumped or fell. One died. The other is in very bad shape. The balloon continued on by itself for another 10 miles or so. There were several other incidents this morning. One 11 year old kid bounced out of the basket when they hit the ground. He got tangled in the ropes and dragged along for a while. A few other people were injured. It was a rough morning.
Yesterday was strange too. It started out normal enough. Just as I was about to leave, a strange, powerful downdraft appeared about a hundred yards to my left. I've never seen anything like it. All the balloons that passed overhead or to the right were perfectly fine. Anyone that went to the left crashed. It was fun to watch. The burners are so powerful on these things. They pull the trigger, and the balloon shoots up into the sky. Not yesterday. Anyone that went off to the left, you'd watch them just just pulling on that burner. Burn, burn burn, fall, fall, fall... Crash! There must have been 20-30 of them that unexpectedly hit the ground right next to where I was standing. Some took off again. Some just gave up and packed it in.
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