One of our favorite family outings of the summer is to our communities Hot Air Balloon festival. This is a small event but so much fun for the little kids to see the all the enormous balloons up close and personal.
The balloon festival starts at 5:00 with live music, food and children’s activities. The balloons line up and slowly begin to come to life. It is really a beautiful site to see as each balloon takes shape in the field. Once a balloon is ready to go, you can see the chase team begin to ready themselves. The kids will all clap and “ooh” and “ahh” as the balloons float up, up and away. Normally about 10-15 of them participate in an evening ride across Ohio.
Once the land, they return to the field to fill up once again and prepare for the evening “glow.” It is during the glow that you are allowed on to the field to get up close and personal with the balloons.
We normally go for the entire event but this year I didn’t get off work in time, so we were only able to make it to the glow. Eph, loves the balloons and will entertain me as we play the “which one is next” game or “what color will it be?” This year they even had a balloon that looked just like a strawberry. It was far from where we were sitting so I didn’t get a good picture.
Unfortunately it was so dark by the time that most of the balloons were up, we didn’t really get to take the fun pictures with the kids like we have in years past. But we had a a great time and can’t wait till next year. Maybe we will be able to convince the kids to take a tethered ride. Right now they are both terrified of the fire.
Never been in one but a town near us has a hot air event every year around the 4th. Eyes to the Skies! Love it. This year there was one with an emperor penguin on it and then some fun characters.
Yes, I was in a hot air balloon once in college. It went really high in the air, but was secured by ropes on the ground. I loved it!