That’s
it, I give up! It has got to be a sign that I am not meant to go to the Balloon
Festival. We were caught in a monsoon!
After
the concert, which was pretty dang good, I headed back to the van to get rid of
my chair. My hubby, our friend and her boyfriend, his son, her sons and my
daughter were about five minutes behind me. (We had the better parking spot, so
we took all the chairs, blankets and coolers.) Anyway, when I see the group
coming, I hop out of the van and start taking the chairs they were carrying
over the fence so they wouldn’t have to carry them all the way around, and I
toss them in the trunk. As I’m doing this it starts to rain a little.
My
girlfriend, no longer burdened with a chair, has made it to my van. It starts
raining a little harder. That’s when everyone decides they are going to take
refuge in my van until the storm passes. I have fifteen chairs, two coolers,
all the bags filled with the free-bees they give you at the festival, plus the
bags of snacks we brought from home; and now eight people are expected to ride
out the storm in the van as well. YIKES!
We
decide the chairs have been wet before, they can get wet again, and it was
perfectly fine for coolers to be out in the rain, so we pull everything water
safe out of the trunk. Now it’s raining hard. Our crew starts running to the
car. One by one they make it. At this point, it’s pouring and everyone is
soaked to the bone.
I
do a head count; two in the front, three in the middle (it’s a two-seater with
a consul between the seats), and three in the trunk. I’m short one kid! My
youngest daughter did not make it back. Apparently she had gone off with her
cousin to find a friend. I manage to get a hold of her, her and her cousin are
taking shelter under one of the tents. My sister-in-law and two of her kids are
under another tent, and my in-laws have safely made it to a third tent. The
family is riding out the storm in four separate locations. My concern is for
the fourteen and thirteen year old who have no adult with them.
I
want to go and find them, but they can’t tell me exactly where they are, and
the rain is coming down in sheets. My baby’s out there cold and wet and scared;
I’m starting to panic. She was fine. Cold and wet, yes, but much more annoyed
than scared. She was going to stay put until the rain let up.
Forty-five
minutes or so later, the rain lets up considerably. They all find each other
and make it back to the bus that gets them to their car. We, on the other hand,
are blocked in by, not one, but two balloon trucks which are stuck rim deep in
the mud. There were cars and trucks stuck all over the lot where we were
parked, everyone waiting for the backhoe to come around and pull them out. We
decide to take a chance and see if we can get out. I make everyone pile out of
the car so it has less weight. We survey the area to find a small patch of
higher ground. That was the spot my husband was to shoot for; he was not to
stop until he reached it. The rest of us would walk to the van and get in
there. With my hubby’s fancy maneuvering and all hands on van to push the
second wheels started to spin, he was able to reach the Promised Land.
Getting
our friends back to where their car was parked was another ordeal but half an
hour later, we managed to get them safely to their car. Another Balloon
Festival weather disaster, another time the balloon launch gets cancelled;
yeah, I’m really thinking I’m not supposed to go to these things.
