Day One-Seventy-Two - Balloons!!!!!

I love a good festival.  The Plano Balloon Festival started yesterday afternoon.  After watching several reports on Fox4 News about it yesterday afternoon, I decided to just go. I haven't been in several years.  The last time I went was as a volunteer so I worked out there all day.  It isn't as much fun to volunteer at a festival is it is to just participate.

So, yesterday afternoon I posted on FB that I was going to go to see if anyone wanted to go with me.  The one person I am sure that I can usually count on in an instance like this is Jenny and sure enough she was up to the challenge.  So, we planned to meet there a little after 6 this morning.  I set my alarm last night for 5 a.m.  I not sure but I may have mentioned before that I am not an early morning person.  If you don't know what I am referring to go back and read the blog about me taking over the world.....  It explains a lot.

Anyway, the alarm went off this morning as planned at 5 a.m.  I was pretty proud.  After only 4 hours of sleep, I was able to get up after only hitting snooze once.  I quickly washed my face, put just a little makeup on, a ball cap so that I wouldn't have to do anything to my hair and gathered my things.  I was out of the house by 5:35.  I stopped in the alley to spray myself thoroughly with Mexican Mosquito Repellent.  Let me just tell you that the Mexicans take their mosquito repelling seriously.  This stuff may be banned in the US, I don't know.  But I was able to get it back in on a cruise ship last year and it is strong!  I got it in Costa Maya in July of 2011 and it is just as powerful now as it was then.  The Texas mosquitoes who had the gall to come toward me, stopped in mid air, took one sniff and did a 180 and flew away in the other direction.  If anybody wants some, I might be able to smuggle some back on my January cruise.  Jenny borrowed it to spray herself after I finally got there and I think the people around us would attest to just how strong it was.

So, I stopped at the ATM for cash, Starbucks for caffeine and headed to the Dart Rail station at Arapaho.  Once I got off the train at Parker, I got on a shuttle that took me to the event.  The shuttle was a little bit of a disappointment.  It took about 20 minutes for the bus to fill up and the stupid driver wouldn't leave without a full bus.  So, Jenny was texting me from the park where she already had our spots before I even left Parker Station.  But I arrived in time to see the Texas balloon "glow" and way before any of the balloons launched.  All in all, it was fun.  I got a few good pictures and it got me up and moving before half of the day was gone.

So, I'm attaching a few pictures.  I hope you enjoy them.  Please scroll down all the way to the bottom so that you can see me with one of my most favorite people in the world, the very cynical Tim Ryan.  Have a great Saturday and Happy Autumn!

Okay, it's only a picture, not the real thing.  But a girl has to take what she can get.  After all, Tim doesn't pose with just anybody!