2,500'

Last weekend I woke up at 3:35am to drive to Temecula for the 2010 balloon & wine festival. It was definitely worth the early wake up!

I want to go over some brief precautions and notices for anyone planning on going. First, definitely spend the extra money and go during the festival.

When you arrive to the parking lot you'll be utterly confused where to go and everyone we asked wasn't quite sure either. So, park close to the festival ticket booth. We entered through the EXIT - I'm not sure if that's how its like every year but keep that in mind.

Next, WEAR A HAT! I read that on the website but thought it wasn't really necessary. ITS FREAKING NECESSARY!!!

If you want pictures pack wide, long and TRAVEL SIZE. They DO NOT allow you to take bags up with you, you leave them behind on the ground. All in the air images were on my 5d2 + 16-35 and fisheye. I wish I could have taken up my 70-200.

Also, if you think you can get those cool ground shots looking up with a ton of balloons - you'll be in for quite a task. It's hard to be in the air and on the ground at the same time. After you check in you'll need to stay around your pilot so that when everyone (8 passengers on our flight) show up you immediately go to your balloon and they start inflating it. Hopefully you get luck and are able to get lots of cool ground shots, but I wasn't really.

Here's our take off video. Moving around is VERY little when you're inside the basket. Thank goodness my girlfriend is a twig and I was able to turn sort of easily.



It REALLY is floating on air! Once you take off you just float, its amazing.

We got up to around 2,500'. Below is what 2,500' and a fisheye look like. Pretty fucking awesome.



To wrap up, its definitely something I'd like to do again, but with a hat and a long lens. I leave you with a few stills captured with my wide angles.