Proto-dawn sky with clouds and stars Sirius is in line with Orian’s Belt.
Pre-dawn the clouds had gathered, and I surprised a skunk. I thought he might have got me a little, but when I asked our office manager if I smelled like a skunk, she said no. Although, another staff member came in a bit skunked after her dog got sprayed.
Lots of balloons up this morning. Click on any photo in the gallery to enlarge it and then you can click through the slideshow.
Off Center & Not Even 
Wow. Those balloon images are magical, Tim.
Thanks, Jeff.
Welcome, Tim.
That’s a lotta balloons! How do they all steer of one another?
They don’t. It’s bumper balloon all around. Thanks, Liz.
You’re welcome, Tim. Seems a little precarious . . .
It isn’t at all. When the balloons crash into power lines, houses, cars, etc. is when they have serious problems.
I was wondering about power lines.
There have been fatilities in years past from getting tangle in the power lines. But the pilots are really good about staying out of trouble given the number of balloons. This is one of the few events that allow spectators and balloons to mix at will on the field. There can be 300K to 400K people of on the field when the balloons are inflating and launching. The AIBF holds the world record for the largest mass assecention of over 1000 balloons at one time.
There is an annual hot air balloon festival in Presque Isle, Maine, where my parents used to live, but it’s small potatoes compared to yours!
An ex staff member who worked for us 25 years ago stopped in to say hi. He lives in Texas now and mentioned that when he’s travelling around on business, people tell him they have big balloon events with 50 balloons. He said he just snickers.
He would definitely snicker at Presque Isle’s handful of balloons floating over the potato fields.
Fabulous balloon slideshow, Tim. Clouds are amazing. Glad you dodged the skunk…I almost had a close encounter once.
I’ve been sprayed before. Our cat Spunk got sprayed a couple of weeks ago and I had to sleep with a stinky cat. I wrote a song about it. You can listen to it at https://soundcloud.com/user-334086053/sleeping-with-a-stinky-cat?si=6de81264543f4d2da242d9b31533bfcd&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing if you would like. The song is funk because it rhymes with Spunk and Skunk. Thanks, Bruce.
Tim, that song is awesome. Funk, Spunk, Skunk. Well done, sir!
I’m happy you liked it. I just felt the need to put that experience to music.
What a nice set of images. I did the star one. Orion is the only constellation I immediately see when it is out.
“dig”
Orian is difinative. Thanks, Bruce.
Wow!!!!! I’ve never seen so many balloons in my life! Those are amazingly dreamy and out of this world!
I couldn’t have said it better. Spot on, Samantha. Thanks.
Skunk scent is pretty powerful stuff. We’ve had some spay a little under the windows at night. Once the olfactory receptors get blasted like that, it take me a little while to not think I am constantly smelling skunk. A memorable “perfume”, it is!
I enjoyed your selection, Tim. Hard to pick a favorite balloon, but it may be the flying saucer. Have you ever seen one shaped like the Star Trek ships?
I have never seeing a Starship Enterprise Balloon. It seems like a logical special shape, but probably hard to make. I don’t remember seeing the UFO in previous years. It’s a cool balloon. Thanks, Lavinia.
I’m remember\ing you got skunked about the same time last year Tim.. was this a new one?
The sky with the balloons are surreal. 💗
I haven’t been skunked in years, but I see skunks all the time. Spunk got skunked a couple of weeks ago. Thanks, Cindy.
I’ve gotta find that post you wrote.. but then again I won’t have time.. lol.. Oh I hate when that happens. Hunter did last year and it lingers on… eww (altho it’s weird but I rather like the smell) Good luck 🥰
Beautiful
Thanks, Inge.
This is realy unseen !!! It must have attracted a lot of people from whole over the world, I think. Thanks for the many pictures, I realy love them. Greets and have a nice weekend.
A million or more people come in for the AIBF. The population of the Albuquerque metro area is doubled for a couple of weeks. The population of NM increases by 1/3. Thanks, Rudi.
I can understand that very well. Had I lived in the States, I would certainly have been interested in coming to this balloon meeting.
It’s so impressive and spectacular to see so many balloons together at one event. It must be very hard to organise such an event…
The is the 50th annerversary of the event. The organizers have gotten pretty good at it. Thanks, Herman.
Magical. Thank you for sharing so many. Lovely display.
You are welcome Shey.
Oh that is lots of balloons and a gorgeous bubbly sky 2!!!
Love the red closeup and spaceship!
The UFO is a good one. Thanks, Marina.
Although much further away, I’m kinda partial to the proto-dawn & Sirius photo. Far out. 🙂
WOW!!!!!
It is a wow.
Where was this?
The AIBF is in Albuquerque every year. Thanks, Leenda.
Ahh… something to look forward to if I move there!!
Super 💯👌
Thanks, Meli.
Amazing balloons. The one car looks like it’s riding on the telephone and power lines. Pretty darn cool!
Glad you didn’t get skunked.
Thanks, Nancy. Sever of the balloons looked like the were walking the line.
That fest is HUUUUGGGEEE – nothing around here comes close to the number of balloons you had the opportunity to photograph. Partial to the Vader and rubber ducky balloons.
It’s reall is huge. I like the duck. I use Duckduck go for my search engine. CyberDuck for my FTP client, and NetworkDuck for my network sniffer. I’mm all for ducks real and virtual. Thanks, Brian.
Is that really a Darth Vader mask i see floaring by? Until now I thought the balloons were just round. Fascinating. How close do the balloons get to each other?
Balloons come in all kinds of special shapes these days. You can see a close up of Darth and Yoda in the post from 2018: https://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2018/10/vincent Thanks, Geoff.
Wow, just had a look at them. Amazing! And is that a scary Freddy Kruger i see as well?
Thst’s Vicint Van Gogh. He looks a bit like Freddy as a balloon.
Of course…… the famous self-portrait. I got distracted by Darth Vader and creature friends. Flying around with Vincent makes much more sense than with Freddy. Agghhhg how foolish of me!!! Thanks!
When I went back to see if there was a Freddy (there could easily have been), I noticed how easy it would be to mix up the identity of that balloon. Maybe they based Freddy on Vincent.
Vincent Kruger?
Could be.
Wow what a show! Glad the skunk missed …
Thanks, Julie.
Holy moly!
I sure enjoyed clicking through the pics. Imagination rules. My fave is the harlequin head ballon. So many great ones. Thanks, Tim!!
You are welcome, Resa.