---

Although many cities have balloon festivals, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, which has about 750 balloons throughout the nine-day event, is the largest hot air balloon festival in the world. However, the fiesta is weather-dependent and this year many activities were cancelled due to strong wind or thunderstorms. In two evenings some balloons were inflated, but the balloonists were forced to deflate them right away. The picture above was taken before one of the night programs (after dark glow). You can tell how bad the situation was by looking at the dark clouds. Nonetheless, the clouds constituted an artistic scene and the firework still proceeded as planned.

---