Каждый год, в городе Альбукерке, штат Нью-Мехико (США), в течении десяти дней проводится крупнейшее в мире шоу воздушных шаров на горячем воздухе. Смотрим это замечательное действо в фотокартинках далее...


The whole deal was supposed to start at 7:30am, but by the time we got there (around 7:10am), it already started:

















Smokey the bear (you will see what happened to it at the end):





















About 15 minutes after we got there:





This cow was the center of attention:





























Even pigs can fly:





By the entrance to the lot. You can see a bunch of balloons getting ready to take-off:













Those two bees were simultaneously taking-off, touching their hands.









Pretty impressive navigation to me, considering it was windy.

























Two definite crowd favorites: an American flag balloon and some dragon.





*** 45-second video of American flag balloon take-off (taken with digital camera video mode, so pardon the quality) [11.5 Mb]

http://hulk.zianet.com/mon/fiesta/MVI_0338.AVI



Still setting up the dragon (took at least an hour):





















Finally the dragon is up:

















Overall view of the show:





*** 30-second video of me trying to capture the whole deal [4.3 Mb]

http://hulk.zianet.com/mon/fiesta/MVI_0349.AVI



Nice wallpaper-like shot:





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Remember the "Smokey the bear" balloon (#5 in this post)? Well, this is what happened to him:





Zoomed-up where you can see the stuck gondola:





People were rescued, nobody got hurt. Except for their insurance company, I bet.