up, up .... and away

Balloon Fiesta !!! you've seen pictures ..... but you have to be on the field with them to really see it.
We're parked just across the freeway from the balloon grounds, but we got up at 4:30 to get over there on the field when the Dawn Patrol went up (there are a half dozen or so go up to check out the winds).  The winds were a "little dicey" we were told; so the mass ascension wasn't until 8am, a little after the sun came over the mountain.  Don't know how many went up (there were approx. 600 balloons registered this year) ... but it was a LOT ... the sky was full ... 360 degrees around you.
One pilot we talked to said todays wind directions and speeds were quite different at different altitudes. And we could see it .... there were balloons drifting in many directions as they went higher .... and some really made big circles.  It was awesome.  I heard the average crowd for any one of the events is 125,000 people.
Quite an experience.
Did I mention that this morning at 5am it was 39 degrees?  Tomorrow morning we are going to watch from the motorhome.  But Sandia mountain, which is just behind us, is covered with a dusting of snow from about a third of the distance up to the top peaks.