National Balloon Classic

It is that time of year again, the State Fair is almost here, the weather is hot and humid and if you are from Indianola then you know it is time for hot air ballooning! One of my favorite time growing up was helping out with the hot air balloons. If you have never been down to check out the balloons, they are in Indianola through this weekend, with flights at 6:30 am and 6:30 pm. Ballooning has been apart of our family for a while now, I remember in middle school tagging along with my aunt Susan, my cousin Ben and my dad out to the balloon field to help crew.

Last night, Heather and I made the trip down to Indianola to go watch the balloons fly! We got into town around 5:30 and picked up my mom and headed out to the field. The flight isn't until 6:30, so we had some time to kill. We walked around the field to see what some of the vendors were selling and as we were walking Heather grabbed my arm and almost yelled "They have Big Boppers!" If you don't know about Big Boppers, they are Heather's new favorite treat. Two big chocolate chip cookies around ice cream, but the thing about Big Boppers is the cookies are still soft and taste fresh baked. I don't know how they do it, but they are amazing. Oh and another thing about Big Boppers, they aren't sold in the grocery store, you can only find them at gas stations that have the Wells Blue Bunny freezer.

So we got Heather her Big Bopper and I needed to find a bathroom, and did I ever. Jim's John's pulls out all the stops with this "VIP Crowd Pleaser" It is the ultimate port-o-potty. The Crowd Pleaser comes with air conditioning, running water, soap dispensers, paper towel, basically it is the works. It truly is a Crowd Pleaser!

After we got all our treats, we headed back to our seats to watch the balloons. We were sitting and waiting for the balloons and we saw the "Heartland Express". This was one of the rides for the kids to enjoy. It was a "Train" pulling several "cars" in a circle around the field. It seemed like this train had done several thousand rides, because there was a path of dead grass going in a circle that the "engineer" would follow as the ride progressed. The kids seemed to be having a good time and Heather and I wondered what it took to become the "engineer" of the Heartland Express, I would guess that there is a rigorous training process, included several "drive" hours behind the wheel of that powerful train!

Anyway, the field was given the "green flag" meaning they are good to go! Most of the balloons headed out of town to fly into the field. The field has a large "X" on the ground and the pilots try to fly their balloons over the "X" and then throw a baggie (bean bag with a fabric tail) onto the "X", and with most games, the closest one wins. There were two balloons that took off from the field, those were two big ride balloons, were you can buy a ride and they take you on a flight. Those two balloons were up and away before the other balloons started coming in.

The morning flights are the competitive flights, where the officials will put "X's" out in the country somewhere and the pilots will have to try and fly to them, sometimes there are multiple x's, so they have to fly from one to the next, to the next, trying to score as many points as possible. Then they total up the points for the week and declare a winner. The evening flights are generally fun flights, not counting towards the overall score, but there will be smaller prizes at stake.

The crowd always goes wild once that first balloon is in the air!

Here they come, into the field!

Let's watch and see how close they get to the "X"!

My sister, Christa, with her daughter, Morgan and my mom are all smiles to see the balloons in the air!