Hot Air Balloon Festival

Beautiful Day for Balloons

Every year, Portland, Oregon has its Rose Festival in June. This includes parades, visiting ships, a fun center, and many other events. One of those has been a Hot Air Balloon Festival, which was held June 24-26 this year (2016.) After a rainy start on Friday when the balloons could not go up, Saturday turned out beautiful and many people turned out. We arrived about 4:30 a.m. and they weren't even set up to let us in, yet. Eventually over a dozen balloons were set up, filled with hot air and took off. It was a beautiful sight against a clear blue sky. We were able to get as close as we wanted, but sometimes farther away was better to capture the whole picture.

The first balloon up carried a flag and someone sang the National Anthem. The largest balloon depicted the "Purple People Eater" and we were reminded that if we remembered the song, we were OLD. To add to the interest, the moon was still up, and shows in some shots. Here are a just few of my photos. Click the button to see more.

Stay tuned for our next adventure.
Grace and Paul

Click on the photos to enlarge them.

More Balloon Pictures