Mariner's Landing Balloon Festival - Smith Mountain Lake, VA

We headed for Mariner's Landing at Smith Mountain Lake for their Balloon Festival. Gretchen had found out about it from her Photo Meet Up group. It was a rather convoluted drive up there, very windy. When we arrived there wasn't much evidence of any balloon presence, but then we saw some baskets in trucks in the parking lot. Found out the launch would be at 5:30 but they weren't sure of the location yet. The pilots were going to get together at 4:30 to decide and the advice was to follow the pilots to the location. However, it was only 2:30 so we spend some time wandering around and Gretchen and John played with their cameras.

A very cool spider web.

About 4:30 we headed back down to the parking lot to see what was happening. The pilots were taking off to the pavillion for their meeting so we hopped in the car and followed them up the hill and waited...and waited...and waited. They finally decided to launch at the entrance about a mile down the road so everybody headed down there. It was awesome!! Well worth the wait!! (For detailed info on the balloon parts visit www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2003/hetherington/final/Hot_air_balloon_parts.html#parachute)

Basket off trailer and on it's side..

Attaching envelope (balloon) to basket.

Spreading envelope.

Fan blowing air into envelope.

more air...

parachute valve at end closing...

First burn to heat up envelope.
She's straight up now...
Meanwhile, other balloons were preparing for launch too...
Bass Masters envelope..

First one off...

Bass Masters off...

Quite a sight!

We followed them for awhile but
then let them fly on into the sunset.

We stopped on the way back and had dinner and then drove home a less windy way and got home about 9:30. What a GREAT day--and this was just a small festival. Maybe we'll have to consider New Mexico!!