Balloon Day

I haven't gotten out of bed this early in many a year. So getting myself on the move at 4:00 AM was a bit of a struggle. But we made it to the shuttle bus by 5:30 AM for our first balloon event.

Our bus driver, who I'm sure is in training for the Indy 500, got us to the fiesta park by 6:00 AM, in time for a breakfast burrito and cup of coffee. Today was special shape day and we wanted to find the right viewing spot. Johnna finally decided on a raised area at one end of the field. She would be about 15 feet above the launch area, giving her an over view of the entire field. I chose to remain on the field and take shots from ground level.

Laying the balloon out.
Inflating the balloon.
Their off.

I was looking for a shot of several balloons simultaneously launching. I managed to get the shot but I'm still not satisfied; I'll try again at the next balloon event. In fact, I'm not very happy with any of my photos from this event. I spent too much time trying to get just the right composition, and didn't pay attention to the camera settings. I started out setting aperture and shutter speed manually but switched to programmed auto mode. Big mistake, the camera decided to switch the ISO to 800 which produced pretty grainy images. The results aren't really that bad, but I should have checked the settings.

Some unique shapes.
Fun Shapes.

In the end, I think Johnna had the right idea; her shots were better than most of the ones I got.

I've been buying a brand of chili Salsa manufactured by the El Pinto restaurant in Albuquerque. I wanted to try the food, so Thursday evening We took Johnna's cousin there for dinner. The restaurant is a big place, a couple of fairly large banquet rooms in addition to the regular dining area. It's a nice atmosphere with good food and margaritas. We got lost going and coming back, dissipate the fabulous GPS device. Although, after I took a wrong turn, the Garmin gadget did get us to the restaurant.