I Was Wrong About Balloons

I didn’t want to drive ten hours to Albuquerque to watch hot-air balloons. Then Jenn took me to the Balloon Fiesta.

I didn’t want to go to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.

In my defense, I’d never been.

I had, however, seen hot-air balloons before. They go up. They float around. Eventually, they come back down.

How much could there possibly be to it?

Jenn disagreed.

We were about 26, had been married for a little more than a year, and were still pretty firmly in the “building our lives and watching our money” phase. Jenn had grown up in Albuquerque, though, so she knew the Balloon Fiesta was a hell of a lot more than a few balloons floating around in the sky.

I wasn’t convinced.

I pictured a slow-moving crowd of balloon enthusiasts and retirees sipping coffee while a handful of hot-air balloons drifted peacefully toward the horizon. Then we’d go home.

I had done absolutely no research, either, which was pretty typical of me at the time. I was prepared to drive ten-plus hours to Albuquerque, complain about being cold or bored, look at some balloons and then leave.

Jenn’s argument was simple.

“Don’t knock it until you try it.”

So I went.

And, as it turns out, she was right.

THE MORNING STARTED AT 4 A.M.

The first trip was just Jenn and me, although we met up with one of her lifelong friends and her husband, who still lived in Albuquerque. We stayed in one of the cheapest hotels we could find, because that’s what you did when you were 26 and still building your professional lives. We picked a place near the freeway because Jenn knew we’d need to get to Balloon Fiesta Park early.

Really early.

We were up around 4 a.m.

The morning events started around 6, and Jenn had already warned me that parking would be a nightmare. She was right. As we got off the freeway, traffic was everywhere. Cars were pouring into the parking areas, and thousands of people were making their way toward the park.

Thousands.

This was my first indication that maybe I’d underestimated this thing.

The parking was actually incredibly well organized, with shuttles running from some of the farther lots. We were young, though, so we decided to walk. It was a long walk, but something changed as we moved with the crowd. The farther we went, the more the anticipation built.

Then came the smell.

Roasting green chile.

If you’ve never smelled green chile roasting in New Mexico, I don’t know that I can adequately explain it. It’s smoky and sweet and peppery all at once, and it seemed to be everywhere that morning. There were breakfast tacos, coffee, hot chocolate and Indian fry bread being sold throughout the park.

I had arrived expecting to be bored.

Instead, I was hungry.

And increasingly curious.

THEN WE REACHED THE FIELD

The field itself was enormous.

So enormous, in fact, that you couldn’t really appreciate its size from the entrance. The launch area was almost perfectly flat and stretched farther than I could take in. And there were cargo vans and trucks everywhere.

Hundreds of them.

Crews were moving equipment into position, preparing their launch areas and getting everything ready. This wasn’t a few people showing up with balloons.

This was a massive operation.

I love people watching, and there was plenty to watch. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing. Crews moved around with a purpose, people were finding their spots, and the crowd was gradually realizing that something pretty spectacular was about to happen.

My original theory was starting to fall apart.

Then the balloons began to come to life.

THE BALLOONS DIDN’T JUST APPEAR. THEY WOKE UP.

The Morning Glow doesn’t happen all at once. A few balloons would begin preparing while everyone else waited. The baskets were bigger than I’d expected, and the balloons themselves were enormous even before they were inflated. Crews laid the baskets on their sides, rolled out the massive envelopes, opened the bottoms and positioned the burners.

Then they started pumping hot air into them. The first burner I heard fire caught me completely off guard.

It was loud. Much louder and more powerful than I expected.

As the balloons slowly inflated, they began to rise from the ground. Eventually, the balloon would stand upright, lifting the basket into position beneath it.

And because this was a glow event, the balloons were tethered to the ground. It was still dark.

Then a burner would fire. For a few seconds, an enormous balloon would suddenly glow from within.

Then it would go dark.

Another one would light up.

Then another.

The effect was mesmerizing.

The crowd would gasp every time a balloon suddenly illuminated, and all around me people were pulling out cameras and phones. I was doing the same thing.

I looked over at Jenn at one point, and I didn’t need her to say anything.

She had the look.

The look that said:

‘Why don’t you ever listen to me?’

THE FLICKER

As the morning went on, the glow became more coordinated. There were countdowns where dozens of balloons would fire their burners at almost the same time. For a few seconds, the darkness would disappear beneath the glow of dozens of enormous balloons.

Then there was the flicker.

Instead of lighting simultaneously, the balloons would flash randomly.

One would glow.

Then another somewhere across the field.

Then three more.

Then one right beside us.

It felt like standing underneath a fireworks show, except the fireworks were enormous glowing balloons and we were surrounded by them.

This was the moment when my original vision of the Balloon Fiesta finally died.

There was nothing slow or boring about this. There was energy everywhere.

The burners were roaring. People were cheering.

Cameras were clicking.

And enormous glowing balloons were appearing and disappearing all around us in the darkness.

I was hooked.

APPARENTLY, I HAD BECOME A PHOTOGRAPHER

I’d bought my first real DSLR before Carter was born. At the time, it was really a camera for taking pictures of our first child. The Balloon Fiesta turned it into something else. I started

taking pictures of everything.

The balloons.

The crews.

The burners.

The baskets.

The people.

The balloons being inflated.

The balloons glowing.

The balloons lifting off.

I took hundreds of pictures.

Maybe more than a thousand.

Jenn eventually caught me photographing pretty much anything that had successfully inflated.

I’m sure she enjoyed that.

The guy who didn’t want to drive ten hours to look at balloons had apparently become completely obsessed with photographing them. And honestly, the experience renewed something in me.

I had always enjoyed photography, but this was the first time I really felt like I was being creative with the camera rather than simply documenting what was happening around me.

There was always something happening.

A balloon changing shape.

A burner firing.

A crew working.

A couple watching.

The sky changing as the sun came up.

I could point the camera in almost any direction and find another picture.

THEN THE SKY FILLED UP

The actual launch was just as impressive. The organization was incredible. Balloons were lined up in rows, with some crews preparing to launch while others were still inflating their balloons. Behind them were rows of vans and trucks bringing in equipment and crews waiting for their turn.

It seemed to go on forever.

As the morning patrol began, the sky was still in that strange blue-gray twilight between night and day. The first balloons rose into it.

Then more.

As the sun came up, the colors became brighter, and the eastern sides of the balloons caught the morning light. I was still taking pictures.

Click.

I felt like a kid with a new toy.

There were traditional balloons in every color and pattern imaginable, but the special shapes were the ones that really grabbed the crowd’s attention.

Darth Vader.
SpongeBob.
The Pepsi can.
A giant cow.
And others I don’t even remember now.

But I remember the feeling.

I’d gone from wondering why anyone would drive ten hours to see balloons to wishing I had more memory cards.

SO GOOD I HAD TO SEE THIS THROUGH CARTER’S EYES

Years later, we went back.

This time, we drove from Salt Lake City with my best friend and his new wife specifically so we could take them to the Balloon Fiesta. That alone probably says enough about how dramatically my opinion had changed.

The first time, Jenn had to convince me to go.

The second time, I was convincing someone else to come with us.

We were still young and still broke enough to make some questionable lodging decisions. On the drive down, we stopped in Monticello, Utah, where four adults and a baby squeezed into a sketchy roadside motel room with two full-size beds.

Let’s just say the accommodations were memorable. But eventually we made it to Albuquerque.

And this time, Carter was with us. He wasn’t quite a year old. He obviously had no idea what the Balloon Fiesta was. He didn’t know that his dad had once complained about driving ten hours to see it.

He just saw the balloons. And he loved them.

Especially the special shapes.

Watching him stare at these enormous colorful objects floating above him brought me back to that first trip. Except this time, I was seeing it through someone else’s eyes.

Kids don’t need to research something before deciding it’s amazing. They don’t need to know whether it’s worth the money. They don’t worry about whether something sounds boring.

They just look up. And sometimes, I think adults could stand to do a little more of that.

I WAS WRONG

The funny thing is, I can’t point to one exact moment when I decided the Balloon Fiesta was incredible. It happened gradually.

It started with the number of people.

Then the smell of roasting green chile.

Then the hundreds of trucks and crews moving around the field.

Then the first burner firing.

Then the first balloon glowing in the darkness.

Then dozens of them.

Then the flicker.

Then the morning patrol.

Then the sky filling with color.

By the time the sun came up, there was no argument left to make.

I was wrong.

I’ve said “Holy shit, this is awesome” more than once about the Balloon Fiesta over the years. And every time I do, Jenn gets to enjoy the same victory she earned the first time we went. She doesn’t even have to say it anymore.

I can hear it anyway.

“I fucking told you so”.

SOMETIMES THE WRONG TURN IS THE THING YOU ALMOST DIDN’T DO

There wasn’t actually a wrong turn on this trip.

We didn’t get lost.
We didn’t stumble onto the Balloon Fiesta by accident.
The wrong turn was the assumption I made before we ever left home.

I had decided what the experience would be without knowing anything about it.
I thought I knew what hot-air balloons were.
I thought I knew what a balloon festival would be.

And I thought I knew whether I’d enjoy it.

I was wrong about all three.

The Balloon Fiesta became one of those experiences that stayed with me—not because I’ve secretly become a balloon nerd, but because it reminded me how easy it is to dismiss something simply because we don’t understand the appeal.

Some of the best travel experiences don’t begin with:

“Holy shit, I can’t wait to do this.”

Sometimes they begin with:

“Do we really have to do this?”

Sometimes your spouse has to drag you somewhere.

Sometimes you have to get up at four in the morning, walk through the cold with thousands of strangers, eat a breakfast taco that smells like roasted green chile, and stand underneath a field full of enormous glowing balloons before you realize you’ve been an idiot.

And sometimes the person standing beside you has known all along.

The best part is that years later, you might find yourself driving ten hours to take someone else there. Because the things we almost don’t do sometimes become the things we remember most.

And sometimes the next wrong turn isn’t a wrong turn at all.

It’s just the direction you hadn’t thought to take yet.