Yesterday was supposed to be the first day, so I'm not sure, but I think the weather got in the way of the Fiest-ivities, yesterday morning. At least, there were no balloons aloft when I walked Budreaux, and he's amazingly sensitive to 'em.
This morning there were dozens up, so I guess the mass ascent went off okay. It was semi-cloudy/overcast and a bit breezy, in the pre-dawn, but the sun dispersed off the worst of it...
On good days, two or three (four? five? I lose count) hundred of them will float about for a couple of hours in the early morn. There is something antic about the bright dots of color floating about in the sky like ampoules of various elements and minerals in a vast Da Vinci thermometer over the city and the plains around. The mountains to the east provide predictable currents, called the "Albuquerque Box."
Something there is in canine ontology that doesn't react well to the huge, floating, roaring shapes. Where I live, they are overhead almost every day during the Fiesta. They drive the local dogs crazy. Every year there are dozens of dog-escapes from yards which contain the animals quite well any other time. Not all end well, as you might imagine.
My pal the Gypsy Vet says it's cuz their hearing is sooo much more acute than ours, the noise of the burners is distressing to 'em. But even when they're just drifting by, not only Budreaux, but ALL the local dogs go ape-shit.
There were bags all over the valley today. Low-level breezes down the Rio Grande Valley waft the craft easily along at heights from 100 to 1000 feet. We're in the drift-zone. There's usually a lot of balloon traffic over the house this week.
Budreaux is limping; he strained something in his left hind leg today, I think, challenging one bearing blue flame designs on the envelope, which descended to around 200 feet above us.
Dogs hate the fucking things. I cannot say I don't sympathize.
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