The Cox Family: Balloon Festival

This morning, Greg called me shortly after he left for work. I was still half-asleep in bed since I was off today. But he never calls me that early in the day - so I was worried that he had a flat tire, or even worse - was in an accident. Well, he was actually calling to let me know there were about 20 hot air balloons in the sky and we could see them at the end of our street! So I got up and went outside to watch them. Every once in a while, we will see a random 1 or 2 hot air balloons outside our house in the early morning. But never this many! So after doing a little google search, I discovered there was a Baton Rouge Hot Air Balloon Festival this weekend. So we decided to check it out that evening with some friends. We couldn't beat the admission price - free!

When we first arrived, all the hot air balloons were being inflated across this big huge field. We were able to walk around and watch the process.

Then just as it started to get darker, the balloons put on a show. The crowd would count down, and the balloons would either do a full burn (all balloons go full blast at the same time) or a twinkle burn (balloons would pulse their burn at random). It was pretty cool to watch!

Then the balloons were brought down, and 3 parachute jumpers floated to the center of the circle. It was dark and they lit sparklers as they were falling from the sky - pretty neat!

Then the grand finale was the fireworks show - it was awesome! Some of the best fireworks we have seen in the past few years.