Feedom Weekend 2008

Last year we attended this balloon festival on Memorial weekend and had a great time. We went back to the "free" festival this year on Saturday afternoon.

Five dollars for parking and it's free to get is what they tell you. When you get in and see the carnival rides, the funnel cake, and the two hundred food vendors you realize that you're going to empty your wallet.

We made it past the first run of vendors without putting out much money. We even got free stuff that companies were handing out. We sat down at the Frisbee catch competition and watched several dogs practice jumping into the air for the disc. Just like last year I dreamed of the day my dog could do that. She'll go fetch a Frisbee. . .once. She'll even bring it back to you. The second time you throw it, my dog will fetch it and then bury it under the porch. There must be a different competition for that.

As I was taking pictures of the dogs jumping into the air, I looked over and caught Meredith and Randy avoiding the heat.

After our break, we headed for round two of vendor road. The kids tried a bungee jump station where they tie you to bungee cords and you jump on a trampoline. The next booth over was a mechanical bull. I tried so hard to get Cari on that thing, but she wasn't going. No matter what.

After we spent more money on food, we headed over to the launch field to get our spot on the hill. For the pilots, this isn't just an evening balloon flight. This is a competition. There is money to be won. Saturday night there were two competitions that the pilot had to choose from.

The first competition starts in the main field. A balloon takes off and goes for a flight. As soon as he launches, the other competitors can fill up their balloons and chase him. The first will choose a landing site and put together a target. The chasers will try to fly over and hit that target with a marker dropped from the balloon.

This was a really great thing to witness. The entire field fills with color as these giant balloons are filled. One at time they float into the air and over the trees.

After the last one has launched, the officials create a large "X" on the field. Another set of balloons start their own starting point and take off. Their goal is to sail over the field and drop their marks in the "X". They have to make guesses on the wind currents and find their way to the field. Again, it's pretty awesome to see these colors rising out of the trees in the distance. It's a slow race back to the field. Sitting on the hill with family watching the balloons is very relaxing. It WAS relaxing until Cari got up for a $5.00 funnel cake and Brenna started crying. I was thinking about the economic impact this festival was having on me as I started to cry with the baby.

When we left, we found out that all the money we spent did not go for training parking lot designers. We sat idle for forty minutes as thirteen rows of cars tried to merge into one lane. At least they didn't charge for the extra time we spent in the parking area.