10/14/23 - Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta - Day 8 Sunrise and Eclipse
83rd TK troop, 38 for the year
CREB 5435 - 25th troop and 10th for the year
TK9 Soos - 2nd troop
This is a big one. Last day of Fiesta and the Eclipse troop.
Getting this one out of the way first. I waited TWO YEARS for this photo. Me and Vader. And it was so worth the wait!
(sorry for no official group photo on the last two. we seem to stop taking them as the week wears on...)
This was Anita's 400th Armored troop!!! She doesn't count ones she handles. Just incredible! She and her husband Joseph (over 900 I think) are huge inspirations to me. Well done Jawamama!!!!
Harriet made it to her 2nd Fiesta troop as well. And as you can see, the selfie runs strong in my family.
Such a rebel. Someday it'll be white armor.
Just Mando things.
Daddy and daughter. Soos is borrowing Mabel's TK rider since he doesn't yet have a costume. We're picking just the right one once he's a little bigger.
Soos got to troop with his buddy Chewie!!! Chewie also had his first Fiesta troops this year, but has trooped with his mom dozens of times. Leia hooked my family up with her same service dog trainer and transformed our lives.
But back to ME. In addition to getting a pic with Vader, I got a zebra selfie! That's been on my list a while too.
(Zebras are the event staff that tell balloons when to launch)
Why do we dot this?! Because of THIS!!! This is the crowd that we were handling this very day, Oct 14th. The full res isn't much larger, so I can't quite tell where my daughter and I are. I think I see Harriet's Sabine bucket near that van by the neighbor red/white/blue balloon. That's the area we worked anyway.
I love my Imperial family. (I'm kneeling lol)
Thanks for another amazing year AIBF!!!! Can't wait for the 2am mornings next October.
a few hours later...
ECLIPSE! Yeah, we had a full eclipse about 10:45 in the morning and it went straight over my town. Straight over Fiesta. They planned an "Eclipse glow" at the Fiesta grounds where all the balloons on the ground would inflate and glow during the event.
Annnnd.... neither Vader nor Yoda were picked. They chose 70 random regular round balloons. Out of everyone I spoke to, no one knew a pilot who was picked for this very exclusive Eclipse Glow and every pilot was very angry. We had planned a troop for it and we made patches. We made about 1500 stickers to give to attendees... Since the SW balloons couldn't attend and I needed to catch a plane in a few hours, I left. The photo above is from my back yard.
But I still armored up to troop under the black sun.
This is, unfortunately, a photoshop creation. It's a combination of two photos I took of the eclipse. It wasn't that dark though. We had something like 97% sun coverage... which is still quite bright. The sky was quite bright and shadows were still sharp. It was similar to a cloudy day at 11:00. I can't imagine the "glowing" balloons were that visible.
Not to end this on a downer. I had a great time looking through my eclipse glasses, taking pix (I have a nice eclipse filter for one of my SLR lenses) and trooping around. It was honestly more satisfying than being disappointed at Fiesta field. Still... wish they'd let Vader ignite and all of us troopers play and entertain the crowds.