Early morning mass balloon ascension at the Cathedral City Balloon Festival

Visiting a hot air balloon festival has been high on my bucket list for a long time. I have seen so many photos of balloons ascending into the desert air that I wanted to see it for myself.

Now that I am spending so much time in the desert, I figured I’ll get lucky one day and there will be a balloon festival near by. Well, I was lucky!

Not only one, but I got to go to two balloon festivals last fall in the desert. I am starting you off with the Cathedral City Hot Air Balloon Festival.

When I heard about the festival, I saw that there was a 6 am mass balloon ascension. It sounded intriguing.

This is how it started.

About 30 hot air balloons were inflated early morning.

It wasn’t quite the mass start that I expected.

Hot air balloons would start floating flying as soon as they were inflated.

They would then fly over our heads into the desert. Isn’t this picture alone worth getting up at 5 am?

Seeing this was so well worth getting up early and watch how the hot air balloons were inflated.

They kind of flew off into the rising sun. It was difficult to take photos against the sun.

Next time I hope to find out where they land and stop there and see them all arrive.

Random facts about hot air balloons

Did you know that the hot air balloon was the first successful flight technology?

The first hot air balloon flight happened in 1783 in Paris, France. It took the US another 10 years to launch a hot air balloon. Ironically the aeronaut was French.

 

Have you been to a hot air balloon festival? Where did you go?

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1 comment

  1. There is something so beautiful about hot air balloons, and an entire festival?! Absolutely magical ?Such lovely photos, I would love to ride in one of the baskets… hopefully one day ?