This weekend we went to the annual Great Forest Park Balloon Race. This race has been going on since 1973. I remember watching the balloons take off from my hospital window when I was a kid recovering from surgery. I was hooked. It’s so beautiful watching the balloons fill up and launch into the sky.

The rules are the Energizer Bunny launches first. Then the other balloons (the hounds) take off in pursuit. The race ends when the bunny lands and the winner is determined by which team gets their bag of birdseed dropped closest to the bunny.

We managed to get up close to one of the balloons this year. The fire and the noise scared the little ones though. But the oldest got to hear the pilots talking about how the shape of the balloon affects the flight. Very interesting stuff.