A Reno Weekend, Part III: Hot-Air Balloons

Well before dawn on Sunday morning, Andrew and I roused ourselves and headed out into the chilly desert night to see what had initially been our main purpose in coming to Reno this weekend: The Great Reno Balloon Race. We drove to a park in downtown Reno and, blankets in hand, followed the crowds flocking to a large open field in the middle of the park. The field was packed, but we found some space for our blanket and settled in.

Just before 5:00am, five hot-air balloons not far from us began inflating. As they filled with air, they began righting themselves until there was a row of fully inflated balloons in front of us. This was the beginning of the Dawn Patrol, the first event of the day. Though about a hundred hot-air balloons would be participating in the day’s activities, only these five would be ascending in the dark of night—something that’s apparently quite difficult to do, due to quickly changing atmospheric conditions. At the direction of a very dramatic, low-voiced announcer, the five Dawn Patrol balloons began glowing in sequence. “And now, a simultaneous glow, in five…four…three…two…one,” the announcer would say, and all five balloons would light up. “And twinkle, in five…four…three…” he’d say, and the balloons would light up intermittently. Eventually, the balloons lifted off into the black night, continuing to glow at the announcer’s direction as they floated higher and drifted away from one another. We lost sight of them eventually and have no idea where they ultimately landed.





After the Dawn Patrol, we had to gather our things and move to a new location; around us, more and more balloonists were arriving, laying out their balloons in the field. We found a new spot in a different part of the field, where we took a nap until the sun finally rose. When we sat up, we were surrounded by balloons in various states of inflation, and the Mass Ascension soon began.















The Mass Ascension is the highlight of the day, when a hundred hot-air balloons lift off more or less simultaneously. Balloons in every color and pattern, and even a few shapes—the heads of Smoky the Bear and Tony the Tiger, two giant bumble bees—rose into the sunny dawn sky as suitably soaring music (and some suitably Reno-hippie selections, like “Age of Aquarius”) poured from loudspeakers. It was an amazing sight, as beautiful and dramatic as we’d thought it would be, and this alone would have been worth the trip to Reno.