The Glow Fizzled

In fading light we
waited for the rise of all
the desert balloons

~ carliewired

Tonight was the annual Desert Balloon Glow in the Desert Sun Stadium.
We arrived with thousands of others, lined up to donate items for the food bank and hand over a couple of dollar bills for our entry fee. 

As we mounted the stairs into the seats, I discovered a burrowing owl squatting on one of the benches. It had its big eyes fixed on us. I stopped and managed to get a couple of photos. It suddenly shot straight up in the air and sailed over the side of the stand to land 15 feet below. There it stood straight up looking back up at me as if disgruntled by our presence. Then it flew off into the parking lot area. 

The hot air balloons gave it their best try to get up in the stadium. The light wind that came across the field was disturbing them. We could see that this event was not really going amount to anything tonight. The two balloons that were trying to inflate at first, let them deflate and settle back onto the grass. We decided to cut and run before the crowd poured out of the stadium. Off we went into the night!