Visiting the Indianola Balloon Festival

Friday evening, Linda and I went south to have a bit of dinner and check out the balloons. Dinner at the Crouse Cafe had the local color we'd hoped and I got to try the hot beef sandwich, half order. We topped it off with a warm piece of cherry pie ... with ice cream. It's not hard to see why these two made recent Register's lists. Hunger staved off for a bit, it was time to head out to the balloon grounds.

The weather was a bit overcast but the breeze from the east made for a comfortable August evening and (what looked like) good ballooning. I believe I heard them announce that ninety pilots were present at the evening briefing. Two balloon games were called and half the balloonists were sent off site.

Those who were going to launch from the field were going to play Fox and Hounds. One balloon, the fox, would take off carrying a large yellow banner. At some point, he'd (probably) land and lay out that banner as a target. The remaining hounds would take off carrying bean bags. When they they got "close enough," they'd toss their bean bag as close as they could to the banner. Closest wins.

The balloons that went off the grounds headed for locations a few miles upwind of the balloon field. There were going for a Ribbon Grab. Their job would be to get back to the field and, if possible, grab a large ribbon from atop one of three poles. Anyone with a ribbon would win two hundred dollars. If you didn't get close enough to grab the ribbon, you could toss a bean bag and hope that ribbons went unclaimed. Again, closest would win.

The take off of the hounds was a great, colorful display as various balloons would take off individually or, sometimes, several at one time. As we watched the hot air parade float by, I wondered whether it was better to take off early and try to quickly follow the path of the fox or to take a little time and see how the other hounds were flying and then chart a course. In either case they were nice to watch as they started their "chase."

The balloons in the ribbon grab dotted the sky high to the north but were following the terrain from the east. As they'd get close, you'd see them rise or fall trying to get the right adjustment to their approach. Some of the early balloons were close, some were definitely not. Before long, we did see one grab a ribbon but the most anyone else could do was toss their bean bag.

As the balloons approached the field, some knew they weren't going to be near the poles and would land where the hounds had just left. One of my favorite moments is captured in the horizontal photo in the top row of the collage; the family / team posed for a picture on the field as other balloons were approaching over their shoulder. Nice shot, I'm sure. I did get one of Linda taking a photo of the approaching balloons.