Category: Cottonwoods

Splash & Dash

Timothy Price55 Comments
Rise and shine the balloons are coming!

Splash and Dash are when pilots land their balloons in the Rio Grande and then take off again. The river is low enough right now that the gondolas can sit on the bottom of the river since there are only a few inches of water in most places. When the river is running higher, they truly “splash and dash”, or they risk getting carried away by the current if they linger in a higher, fast-flowing current. In 2015 one balloonist hit the water like a Kamikaze. You can see the post at https://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/10/splash-down. Today the pilots mostly sat their gondolas in the swallows for a few minutes before taking off again. Several balloons splashed in more than one location. The 5-minute video below shows balloons floating in for their splashes and dashes.

Early balloon at dawn.

The green dragon is popular. Here he is from three sides.

The stork balloon belongs to the doctor who delivered Tristan. She was born during the balloon fiesta. Poor Dr. Komadina was going to have to miss the balloon event that morning, but there was a freak snowstorm the night before leaving a foot of snow on the ground the morning Tristan was born. The balloon event was canceled that morning.

Contrails & Special Shapes

Timothy Price54 Comments
Dawn

Today was the special shapes rodeo. I did not see as many special shapes as in years past. Many of them barely rose above the trees and then went back down.

There was a traffic jamb of gondolas trying to get onto the neighbor’s field to launch. A critter balloon. Rising through behind the trees.

All the contrails for the morning jets.

Clouds are best at making special shapes.

Sunset

Birthday & Balloons

Timothy Price80 Comments

Today is Laurie’s birthday and the second day of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta with a mass ascension.

Jake came out for Laurie’s birthday.

One of the helium balloons taking off last night.
X marked the spot.

There were a lot of nice high clouds this morning.

The native flyers. The pTerodactyl stopped to watch the balloons for a few minutes, also.

Sasha, Spunk, Roses, Gwendolyn, Sunset

Timothy Price74 Comments

I brought my guitar stool out into the dance room for Laurie to try it out to see what height stool we needed to order for her to use at school. Sasha was really digging on it so I left it out for her to hangout on. But then Spunk couldn’t resist, and started eating the stool. So now there are several torn places on the seat. Spunk has to be one of the most destructive cats I have ever known.

“Whaddya talking about? Who? Moi? Me! ¿Me? Fi? Mise? Μου? Mij? Mir? मैं? Мне? Resa’s sweet little ‘Spunky Poo💋’? Do I look the the type who would eat a guitar stool?” YES!!!!!

“Oh wow, man! Like there’s some really heavy hallucinogens in that catnip! It’s like I can see strawberry catnip fields forever!”

I thought there would be a really good, colorful sunset out of these clouds last night. It didn’t happen. Everything turned gray. I think Gwendolyn’s catnip hallucinations confiscated all of the strawberry color out of the sky to color her forever strawberry catnip fields.

STOP!

Timothy Price50 Comments

Søren. I know you tell the cats to “STOP” all the time and they don’t listen to you. What makes you think they can read?

Silver caught Cator Mortis from Loki. Glenda is the black cat in the foreground in the middle picture.

Sky views

Moon at sunset

Caw of the wild. I think this is a whiny juvenile crow.

These flowers grow from bulbs. They are like a cross between a Shasta Daisy and a sunflower.

A fine end to the day