It’s that time of year here in Reno, NV. Every year around the first or second week of September we have the Balloon Races. They’re pretty nifty and it seems no matter where you live in the city, chances are you can wake up or walk out your front door in the morning to see a giant, colorful balloon descending on your street or in your backyard. They have an event called “Dawn Patrol” where you can get up at the crack of dawn and drive down to the park where the balloons call home and watch them fill the balloons up with air and then ascend into the sky, en masse. The reason this is cool is because before the sun has come up and it’s still dark, the balloons literally glow. It’s quite the sight and everyone who lives here has to do it at least once.

I don’t know whether we’ll do Dawn Patrol this year or not. And being way out in BFE (don’t ask me to spell it out for you), we generally don’t see much of the balloons out here.  But this morning when I walked Harry to school, we saw that they had a balloon crew set up right next to the playground!  The kids were FASCINATED by this, of course, as were us parents.  They started filling it up when the bell rang and you never saw children so reluctant to line up to walk into their classrooms in your life.  Luckily, they brought out the earlier grades (kindergarten, 1st and 2nd) a little later to watch them actually fill the balloon with the hot air and participate a little.  Made their year, I bet.  I’m sure Harry will have a lot to say about it when I pick him up this afternoon.  Shoot, I was excited just getting to watch all of this close up and get some pictures on my camera phone.

Just one more thing that I love about fall around here.  Maybe we will go to Dawn Patrol this year.  Sleeping is overrated, I’ve heard.