Balloon glow

A couple of years ago Stephanie and I chased in a car the Kentucky Derby Festival balloon race. I missed a "balloon glow" in Macomb. We thought a balloon glow might be a nighttime start of a balloon race. Instead, as it gets dark, they use the hot air to blow the balloons up - and they let the baloons shine and make a lot of noise blowing them up - and then the balloons get deflated - there's no balloon race. It's all a kind of an exercise. One of the area suburbs is Jeffersontown which - like Pickerington, where Stephanie's mother lives - is a sprawling suburb - but has an old downtown that many J-town residents probably don't go too. Hurstbourne Parkway - like Pickerington's 256 - in J-town is where our vet's office is. On Friday night - the last night of Ike aftermath for us (we'd get home to find the lights on - see "Ike aftermath" - and another night during the week after Vincent ran away when Vincent was off who knows where - Pablo's house, I believe ) - Stephanie and I drove past our vet's and went - sans Vincent and Frisco - to the balloon glow associated with Jeffersontown's annual fall Gaslight Festival (the parade had been on Thursday). It was quite a scene with lots of kids and families. We were sort of bummed there was no race - but the glowing balloons were kind of cool.

You can't see it well, but below is a balloon that bore the logo of Coca-Cola, the company that Nancy worked for for a couple of decades.

All of balloons bore logos of sponsors, including one for Subway - though you can't make out the logos so well in the dark (although - when we first got there - it was lighter - and also lighter than it appears in these photos).

I've taken a video of later in the relatively short event proper (see below). As the event wound up we talked with a woman there with her child and extended family - She was a medical researcher for the university and was originally from some Eastern European country (like the Ukraine - the first of two such Eastern European American women we talked with events over the subsequent few weeks).

Below is a video I took with my camera from late during the event. Click on the play button to view it.

-- Perry