September 15, 2008

The weekend of September 12 saw me attending the Snowmass Balloon Festival (www.snowmassballoon.com) in Snowmass Village, Colorado, where I crewed for the Wildfire balloon owned by the Pilot Skip Howes and Crew Chief Debbie Howes of Colorado Springs. Skip is an Architect, General Contractor and Developer with most of his work located in the Woodland Park area, and Debbie is a Realtor with ReMax in Woodland Park. And as they tell me ... they're the Howes Team.

We arrived in Snowmass Village on Thursday and checked in to the The Crestwood, which is a condominium hotel. The Staff was great, and the parking lot was definitely full between the balloonists and those that were there for a Mountain Bike race that included Lance Armstrong as a Member of one of the Teams participating. We stayed in a two bedroom condominium that was for sale at the bargain price of $1.275 million. The same condominium in Frisco would probably bring abround $4-500K.

On Friday we were weathered out from the Down Valley Rat Race, and ended up driving to Basalt for breakfast at the Two Rivers Bar & Cafe and had a very good breakfast with a few of our Balloon Mates from the Toucan 2 Balloon Crew. The rest of the day was spent being slugs in the living room of the condominium where we watched Food Network shows. It seemed that the main ingredient of a few shows was ... bacon. And we honored that theme by buying a pizza on Saturday night from Taster's in Snowmass Village, with one of the featured ingredients being ... bacon! Thursday night was the traditional Spaghetti Dinner and instead of taking place in one of Pilot's condo, it was in one of the meeting rooms at The Crestwood. There was a good turnout, with good food and drink, and the company entertaining and enjoyable as usual. Friday night was also the Pilot and Crew gathering at the Brothers' Grille in the Silvertree Hotel just off of the Snowmass Village Mall, and who put out a great spread of Asian cuisine.

On Saturday I got to fly with Skip for the very first time and we ventured up the Snowmass Club golf course with the hopes of coming back down and going over the field where the Don Quixote competition was taking place. Which is nothing more than popping balloons that were tethered to the ground with a stick and nail attached to the end. We crossed the 18th fairway about 225 yards out from the pin and then came to a halt. The winds, calm as they were, then pushed us back to the 17th fairway and we ended up walking the balloon to a pathway adjacent to the 16th fairway that easily accessed the road. Our Crew consisted of us, as well as Wayne and Crisette who normally Crew for Toucan 2 piloted by Kent Wolcott of Colorado Springs. They had a good number of Crew Members assisting them during the event, and Wayne and Crisette volunteered to help us. On Sunday, Wayne got to fly with Skip in the Target Tubing competition, which is tossing tennis balls into tubes that were floating on the water hazard for the 18th hole of the golf course. The only opportunity they had at the target was from above with Ken Tadolini and his balloon, Outlaw, from Denver below them, and definitely in the way. They contemplated dropping the balls off of their balloon but ended up not doing that. Most of the Pilots ended up on the golf course cart path, or the adjacent pathway, and just parked their balloons hoping for favorable winds to take them back over the target area, which it never did. Wildfire landed near the same pathway along the 16th fairway where we packed up the balloon after waiting for those same winds.

It was an enjoyable Fall weekend in Snowmass Village and the drive over Independence Pass was enjoyable as always, and more so with the aspen leaves well into their change of colors. Definitely worth a drive.