Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Day 2

Another bright and early start to get over to the balloon fiesta.  It's colder than yesterday (45F), but the skies are much clearer.  Yesterday the park and ride was pretty empty, but today we got the 2nd to last spot in the whole lot.  Lucky us!
Another bus ride to the balloon field.  After seeing all the cars backed up trying to park at the field itself, we're glad we took the bus since they were allowed to take a back route and drive right up.

As we were driving up, we saw 5 balloons already in the air and were thinking "Oh no, it's started already and we're missing it."  Yeah, that was five of four hundred, so we didn't miss much.

On of the great parts of the fiesta was how close you could get to the balloons. 

And the balloons are packed together since there's so many.

Peeking inside one as it's getting filled up.

Fire!

It's really amazing how close you can get to the balloons as they're filling them up.

A balloon headed to the mountain as the sun is coming up.

Balloons don't launch straight up.  They have people in ref uniforms that clear a path and then off they go.

Watching with wonder as they're lifting off.

It's astounding how many balloons there are.

Theresa had a smile on her face the whole time.

Every one of these tiny dots in the sky is a balloon!

These two bees are holding hands.

A quick kiss.

And then they're off sailing the sky together.

An Elvis balloon.

One of my favorite balloons.  Darth Vader!

And surrounding the balloon were stormtroopers, Boba Fett, a sand person, tie fighter pilots, and more!

My mother would appreciate this one.

And surprisingly Northrop is sponsoring a balloon.

More fun shapes.

After checking out all the balloons, it was time for breakfast.  We started by splitting a funnel cake.  Mmm.

And discovered that stormtroopers like Krispy Kremes.

And finished it up with a breakfast burrito.

From there, we headed back to the hotel for a nap then out again to enjoy the rest of our afternoon.