Better than Disneyland....the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

When we first started talking about where to go for our fall camping trip, I said I wanted to go to White Sands National Monument, in southern New Mexico (more to come on this). These plans evolved into Gav driving to New Mexico, while I worked my last stretch of shifts, and me flying into Albuquerque. Starting my search for RV parks, I kept coming across inflated prices, secondary to this thing called "Balloon Fiesta." We're going to go ahead and call it "Better Than Disneyland". Turns out, Balloon Fiesta is the biggest hot air ballooning events in the world. Yup, 550 ballooon big, people. If you've ever seen a photo of lots of balloons in one place, it's probably taken at this event. The Fiesta takes place over 9 days in Albuquerque, which has near perfect ballooning weather. It's been happening since 1972 and you need to attend this event at least once in your lifetime. There are 2 sessions (most days), an early morning and evening. The evening focus is balloon "glows", where they inflate and light up the balloons with propane, but the balloons stay on the ground, since it's night (duh, right?). The morning session is when they do "mass ascensions", perfect weather conditions assumed. Since we'd never been before, of course we wanted to see a bunch of balloons take off, so morning session it was. Gondola Club: Pay for this, when you go to this event. You get priority parking, a heated tent, breakfast and booze are included. And heated premium porta-potties (priorities). Why do these things matter? Because you need to arrive at the Balloon Fiesta grounds by 0530, so that you don't miss the whole thing. Traffic is a nightmare, this event attracts 1000's of people per session. Arrive early, have a nice hot breakfast, then you'll be ready for the show that's about to commence.

Dawn patrol: This is usually about 10-12 balloons that inflate and take off just at dawn, to check out the conditions for all the other balloons. You walk out onto the field and can literally walk up to these balloons as they are setting up. I mean, right up to them. Set up is happening all around you.

Mass asencsion: Exactly what it sounds like, 100's of balloons, all taking off, seeming at the same time. By the time the sun was up, there were balloons everywhere, in various stages of setting up and taking off. There's traditional coloured/shaped balloons and then there's the "special shapes" balloons. These are weird, wonderful, cool and crazy: ladybugs, a Canadian Mountie, an armadillo gun slinger, Yoda...and so many more.

Verdict: Better than Disneyland. Gav and I were grinning like little kids the whole time. It's freezing cold and a super early start to get down to the park, but worth it all. If you've never been to this event, then you have to go. You'll never experience anything like this anywhere else. Take heed, we happened to be there on a perfect weather day, when all the balloons could take off. The last morning session of the Fiesta, they weren't even able to inflate any balloons because of the winds. So, keep in mind, that the weather might cancel the big event and you might have to go back a 2nd day. Hopefully you can luck out, as we did, and get perfect weather on your first attempt!