Albuquerque International Balloon Festival
Posted by Tyler Regas on October 09, 2002 10:17 AM

This time of year marks the Albuquerque International Balloon Festival held in, of all places, Albuquerque, New Mexico, which also happens to be the home of the offices of PHM. The picture here (a larger one can be seen by following the link) is of my daughter. Note the PDA HandyMan billboard in the background. Ok, the billboard was added using Macromedia's superb Fireworks MX. The annual festival hosts hundreds of hotair and gas balloons from around the world.

Gary Johnson, New Mexico's Governor, has also been declared the unofficial winner of the gas balloon race, the results of which must still be calculated. In a balloon race, the winner is the balloon that goes the furthest. Gary Johnson and flight partner Richard Abruzzo traveled a total of 1,740 miles in 44 hours. The balloon travelled from 55 to 70 miles per hour at an average height of 15,900 ft. The pilot, Richard Abruzzo was required to navigate the balloon around no-fly zones in the Washington D.C. area. The team landed their craft in a Delaware soybean field a mere 10 miles from the Atlantic ocean. On a humorous note, the man who greeted the landing team originally lived in Socorro, NM. located just a few dozen miles South of Albuquerque.

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