Balloon Fiesta: day 4

The morning of our fourth day at the Balloon Fiesta was supposed to be a very memorable one: we were scheduled to go up in a balloon!

However, the weather gods had other ideas.

That morning, we headed to the Rainbow Ryders tent. Here’s the line for balloon rides:

However, we were able to skip that line, as we had splurged on the Ryders Club VIP option, which gave expedited access, buffet breakfast, transport to the balloon, and a swag bag:

While waiting for the flight, we went out and watched the drone show:

But when we went back to the tent at the appointed time, they announced that the flights had been cancelled, due to inclement weather.

The fiesta announcers didn’t announce the cancellation for quite some time after that, but several balloonists fired their burners in the sky, which was a sign they knew they wouldn’t be flying:

Cynically, I thought that’s because they wanted to give the vendors more time to sell more food and swag. But charitably, one could say they hoped the weather would improve.

The rooftop announcers:

So, that was very disappointing. The weather had been iffy all week, with pretty much all of the evening activities cancelled, and some of the morning ones, though they had been able to fly most mornings. Just not on the day we were scheduled. Boo!

Oh well, we’ll try again next year. They will refund the cost, but it still was unfortunate and frustrating.

That evening was also a bust; just before we were going to go down to the field, the skies opened up again, and they sent a notification that things were cancelled, again.

They still set off the fireworks, which we watched from inside our coach (through the rain-streaked Magne Shade):