2018 Lancaster County Balloon Festival
Friday Night
I was all excited to take the Bubs to his first balloon festival. I told him we would have to hustle right after school so we wouldn’t miss anything. There was supposed to be thirty balloons at the 2018 Lancaster Balloon festival in Bird in Hand, Pennsylvania. That is in Lancaster county for all those who aren’t familiar with Dutchie sounding town names like Intercourse, Paradise.
So it was set, despite the warnings that Friday night was going to be crazy because the local fire company also sponsors a fun run, 5K, and half marathon going on at the same time, we persisted. The balloons were supposed to lift off at 5:45 PM. So the game plan was to arrive at 4:30 which we did.
I brought two cameras in the backpack, my Full Framed Nikon D750 for Wide Angle shots with the 15-30mm and later ultra Zoom with the 150-600mm lens, and an old Nikon D5000 DX camers with a 24-120mm FX lens.
We were actually a little early and we had a snack of German Soft Pretzels and a lemonade from under the party tent. There was also a spaghetti dinner going on but we had plans for dinner later on with the Mrs.
I knew I forgot something and that was lawn chairs. If you ever attend it wouldn’t hurt to have a fold up chair in case you want to sit down. We camped out right in front of a wire fence that separated the festival from the field where the balloons were going to take off. Pick up trucks started arriving and next thing you know large wicker baskets were being taken from trailers. This was a good sign.
2018 Lancaster County Balloon Festival
I went walk about to grab some pictures. I stayed out of the crews way while they were doing their thing but wanted to see the process of how this all happened. It probably didn’t hurt that I had two camera bodies around me and most people figured I was with the press.
It was then I noticed a little bit of grey sky in the distance, no worries right? Well the important thing I learned is these balloons will not fly if the wind go above 10 mph; for now we were good.
A few local balloons were set up, passengers were assembling. I went to the other side of the field and watched a smaller private rainbow colored balloon being set up. The process was fascinating.
It was then that I noticed the two balloons that were already set up started to deflate. Uhh Oh! I slowly meandered over there to see what was up. The grey sky and storms were getting closer, and for safety sake they deflated the balloons to see if the weather would vacate the area. Long story short is nope. The 2018 Lancaster County Balloon Festival night 1 was a NOGO!
On a side note, a small 1 man tethered balloon was set up and an older gentleman was entertaining the crowd. It was at that point that the Bubs and I decided to depart and to try and beat the weather going east. We were NOT successful.
Unfortunately both days two and three of the 2018 Lancaster County Balloon Festival were a total washout and the festival was called off early. Not to be deterred, I plan on going both morning and evening sessions next year on Day 1. So stay tuned to the 2019 Day 1 pictures from the Lancaster County Balloon festival when it happens.
