Facebook gallery is here.
One of my favorite movies growing up was an early Irwin Allen effort (pause while I write a quick fugue with that as the text) called "Five Weeks In a Balloon" based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name - though Verne called his "Cinq Semaines en Ballon" (the link is to an English translation).
I grew up with Jules Verne. At Lee Elementary School we started actual library class with the amazing Mrs. Key - "reading is key" - in second grade. I jumped immediately to the chapter books - I remember asking her permission and then just dived in. The first one was "The Voyage of the Luna Two" about two English children who are stowaways on the first British rocket to the moon - and how they got back.
Scientifically it was nonsense but at least the writer was kind enough to at least try to explain how things worked - it wasn't accurate but at least he made the effort.
As you read each book you wrote its name on a card list - when I left Lee at the end of Sixth grade I remember my stack of accumulated cards would have made James Lipton faint dead.
Jules Verne played a great part in that. It spoke to a deep part of me, reading the lists of fish M. Arronax saw through the windows of the Nautilus, the descriptions of how a howdah functioned in under Passepartout - and the incredible plot twist that ended "Around the World in Eighty Days".
You see, we weren't in a position to go places (much) and there were worlds beckoning on TV as astronauts rode pillars of flame into space - Verne did a lot to keep my eyes off the ground (which is why I occasionally stumble on stones other men see and build into big houses).
All of this backstory makes sitting on the bank of the Androscoggin with C. and Chief the Wonderdog easy to understand. C. had been talking about going to the festival for a year or more and it turned out the weather and schedules allowed it to happen.
We had tried to get in the front gate but the elf in charge pointed out a sign that said "no animals" - I really wanted to give the kid a hard time because it would have been fun - probably because it would also have been patently unfair - but let that pass.
We wound up on the Auburn side of the river, on the bank (shown in the last of the Facebook pix). I don't know what it means (I have some guesses) but everything seems, on the surface, anyway, to be nicer and somewhat less hectic on the Auburn side.
There are all sorts of cliches about this kind of thing that I can't really use since I've never been up in a hot air balloon - "peaceful", "floating Christmas ornaments", that kind of thing. They're just really pretty, I can say that - and they get off the ground with alarming speed.
The last time I'd been to the Great Falls Balloon Festival was three years earlier when I'd taken over the position at LHS. The Music Boosters run a booth selling water and do really well - Chief's presence meant I couldn't go over and nose around.
I did see one CRMS student as we crossed back to the car, and one parent of a particularly talented LHS student (J. has graduated and is wisely taking a year off - wish I'd done that, but then I wouldn't be here right now).
So it was a fun afternoon.
