The weekend of Independence Day, Montrose hosted a hot air balloon festival.  So on the 4th, we got up at the crack of dawn and drove to the field to see the thirty balloons take off.  Too windy, so no go.  Ever confident, we repeated our efforts the following morning and were rewarded with the thrill of our first balloon festival.  Watching them inflate en masse and then rising into the sky was fabulous.  Now I’m ready to head to Albuquerque’s Festival, which folks have been talking about for years.  We took over 100 photos and have to narrow that down a bit to conserve some hard drive space.  In the evening we went over for the “Glow,” which takes place after dark and the flames in the inflated balloons makes them glow from the inside.  Sort of like big luminaries.