The Prosser Balloon Rally '08

September 27th 6am

Well since we didn't make it to the Great Reno Balloon Fest, we decided to take our telescopes and camera equipment and head out to the Prosser Balloon Rally over the weekend of the 27 and 28th and celebrate Chris' 49th birthday. Plan was to take Hwy 410 over to Yakima and then on into Prosser, however our favorite RV Park was booked solid, so Marc got on the puter and booked us into the Beach RV Park in Benton City, WA (Beach in Eastern Washington, hmmmm where was he taking us to???), it was close only 15 minutes beyond Prosser. So 2am in the morning of the 27th or do you call it the middle of the night, we got up and were out the door by 2:30am to head over to Prosser, in Eastern, WA. Well, first problem was that the GPS said 410 was not the fastest route to take...it was the shortest route, but the fastest route was over I-90 and since time was an issue, I-90 it was. Marc drove since this was basically regular wake up time with his hours at work. Chris managed to stay awake just before Ellensburg then she was out like a light until we hit Yakima. In Yakima she took over driving to give Marc a break and for him to catch a bit of a cat nap. We arrived at the Prosser Airport where the first event was taking place at 6am...we arrived at 6:02am...great timing!!!

We saw the first crews arriving to set up the balloons. So out came the camera, video and tripods. We watched as they prepared their balloons to prepare to launch off.

Testing the burners.

Basket, Burner and Big Flames

Next, they laid out the balloons on tarps. All of the vistors were warned not to step on the tarps or to walk over the ropes, but rather to walk around.

Colourful Balloons, just waiting to take the air!!!

They had these huge crank pull start fans, to fill the balloons before they could turn the burners on to fill with the hot air.

Getting ready to turn the fan on

Cute Red One!!!

Notice the four Propane bottles in each corner of the basket

This is so that the flames do not burn the silk of the fabric.

Once the balloon is filled to a certain level they then turn the burner into the balloon and start the rising effect, first with quick jolts of flames until the balloon is upright then they could do longer jolts, but they never kept them on for long. The heat from the burners was intense.