Saturday, August 1, 2009

Santa Paula Hot Air Balloon Fest

Ben had to work today so I decided to drive up SR126 to Santa Paula, CA as I heard they were having their annual Hot Air Balloon Fest. I had gone to one of these Balloon Fests up in Lancaster, CA many, many years ago. You have to get there pretty early in the morning as from what I understand, their best flight time is at sundown or just after sunrise.
We awoke to a sunny morning in Santa Clarita, but once I started heading west, I ran into the marine layer that had come in over night and had fog and low clouds ahead of me. Right then I thought the balloons probably would not be up because of the bad visibility.
Wouldn't you know it? The middle of summer in Southern California, where it is usually HOT with clear sky, today decided to be all overcast in Santa Paula.
For miles I scanned the horizon to see if I could see anything, then, just as I came out of a curve on the highway, there in front of me sat about 8 or 10 huge balloon, all tethered to the ground in a park.
I pulled over and started taking some photos. There were people parked all along both sides of the highway and in the vacant lots all around. This area is all farmland, so there were a lot of vacant lots.
After about 20 minutes or so, I guess the balloonists realized that the fog was not going to burn off so the could fly and they all started deflating their balloons, so I left and came home.
Oh well.





1 comment:

  1. They are soooo pretty and I love to see them in the sky.

    ReplyDelete

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Kay