Up Up and Away!
Posted by heymoe on October 29th, 2007
Last Sunday I went to the 34th Annual Carolina BalloonFest in Statesville, NC.. The event took place at the Statesville Regional Airport (KSVH) which made me wish my pilot license was still current. I could have just flown out there which would have been a lot quicker then the 2.5 hour drive from Raleigh. In any case, I got there shortly after 2pm which gave me plenty of time to walk around and enjoy the other activities before the launching of the hot air balloons at 4:30pm. There were a lot of attractions for the kids as well as wine tasting for the grown ups from several local vineyards and different arts and crafts booths. There was a lot of different type of fair style foods to enjoy as well. The frozen cheesecake on a stick dipped in chocolate was really good.
Before 4:30pm rolled around there was one group inflating a balloon but they did not get to far since the winds started to pick up. This was the first time I’ve seen a hot air balloon get inflated but not the last one. I do kind of remember taking a hot air balloon ride once but I was really little at the time and it was not really much of a ride. It was more or less a up and right back down to were we started. Come to think of it, I’m not sure how that would have worked, maybe it was not a real hot air balloon ride after all.
Any ways shortly after 4:30pm the grounds started to buzz with activity as gas powered fans started to inflate several balloons at the same time. It was really neat that while the balloons were being inflated you were allowed to walk right up to the and touch them. The only area they were really strict about keeping you away from was right behind the basket where an anchor line was running from the basket to a car / truck. As the balloons filled and started to lift the baskets, this line would get pulled tight and could whip around some so it’s not a good place to be. I got a lot of great shots of the inflation process as well as the rise and fall (a few balloons had some technical difficulties that required them to be deflated quickly) of the envelopes on the ground. Over all I had a great time.
