This is my second year in the Pioneer Balloon Jubilee. My sponsor this year is Landmark Title Inc. 117 E. 4th Street, Clovis, NM 88102. Jay brought family and friends out to crew. I found him at the crew party on Friday night and we discussed briefly what I needed. As usual I told him to bring as many people as he wanted to fly as I had no crew with me. Well we all know that is a gray area. I did bring my Albuquerque grandkids with me enroute to Alamogordo to stay a couple weeks with their other grandma. As children go they can do some things and they prefer not to do other things. I had a good size group on Saturday with way too much wind flowing. I put up my kite so the weather guy could see the wind without a problem. The parade went without a hitch. A bunch of us balloonists got together and did the parade. It was my first parade. I feel strange entering the parade and not having something creative to look at. Its time to decorate the trailer.
We did a lot of swimming in the Holiday Inn pools. Matt, Michelle, and Christopher liked having a choice of inside or outside pool. The inside pool was very warm and inviting. I went up to my ankles in the outside pool. We also checked out local restaurants and stores. The Fire Concert didn't go off as a big rain/hail storm came in. We got an early to bed for Sunday morning.
Sunday found us on the field spread out like we were going to fly. Calm wind and a couple of storms in the vicinity. One moving away and one coming towards us. We went on weather hold and then a decision was made to prepare our balloons if a window appeared. Roughly half of the balloons flew and some just inflated and others well the wind changed direction during the hot inflation process and there were some surprised pilots burning envelopes. I got mine hot just during the change and was able to control the side cave-in. We launched with three aboard and did a lazy flight to the northeast. We started at about 6 MPH and soon were at 8 MPH. Very little steerage at the beginning then everything went the same way. I came down to check ground wind speed and found it at 14.1 MPH by GPS so I picked a long pasture and came in cruising. After lightly touching down we rode the balloon for a good while. My sponsor has the grass stained banner to make up his own hot air tale. I told my crew the only thing we lacked was the hill so we could roll side ways as we drag. A good time was had by all.
I'm missing one first timer in this pic. She had to go somewhere. These guys were awesome. They didn't spill a drop. Of course our crew pic minus let's see mom, dad, and a few others. There was some picture taking going on with my crew so when they come to me I'll add them in here. I know we have some from the basket during flight.
Some pics of our trip home. We stopped in Roswell to see the Alien Museum as my grandkids have never seen it. Looking forward to coming back and doing Clovis again.
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