Balloon Fiesta 2006 - "Glow-deo"

Friday night, John, Chris, Sam and I went to Balloon Fiesta Park and saw the Special Shapes Glow-deo. All of the corporate and special shaped balloons go to this event. They fill the balloons enough to make them stand, then as sunset approaches, they gas the balloons, making them glow. It is a great way to get an up-close look at the operations involved in getting one of these filled, as well as to enjoy the construction and creativity of the designs.

Many of the balloon teams have trading cards printed with pictures of their balloons and basic statistics. Kids and adults alike walk around to each balloon with hopes of collecting these cards. We collected cards from 16 different balloons (many either didn't have cards or had run out by the time we got to them. The picture above gives you a very small glimpse of the volumn of people attending. Card competition was HIGH.) We have cards from local Albuquerque companies, as well as cards from Arizona, Utah, Texas, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kentucky, South Dakota, Ontario, Brazil, and Germany.

I'm trying to come up with a cool way to display the cards. I'd love to put them up on the wall, but of course, you lose view of the reverse side of the card that way. I could put them in a trading card album, but then you only see them once a year. Of course, with the book, Sam can continue to add to the collection year after year. Perhaps I will color photo copy the cards and do both. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

This picture was taken before sunset with the digital camera. Unfortunately the digital camera doesn't fair well after dusk - so this is one of the few good pictures we captured with it. We did however take the regular 35mm with us. As soon as I get the film developed, there will be a lot more photos.

By the way, if you click on any of the photos in my blog, a new window will open up showing you an enlarged view.