Up in the Air at the Stoweflake Balloon Festival
Posted by Roger on 19 Jul 2010 at 10:55 am | Tagged as: Events
I was greeted by a family of skunks, rooting around in the grass near the big event tent. It was 5:15am on a foggy Friday morning in a quiet field in Stowe, Vermont, just me and five little hungry critters welcoming the day. Keeping a wide arc, I busied myself with setting up a coffee station for the pilots and crews that would be assembling soon. This was the first morning launch of the 2010 Stoweflake Balloon Festival, and I was on hand to provide coffee for the early risers (pun intended). People started to arrive and sleepily approach the tent. Skunks don’t like people much, so as one furry black and white cluster, they ambled off into the tall grass as the human activity began increasing.
Thousands of hot air balloon enthusiasts congregate in Stowe each July for this festival. Organized by the Stoweflake Resort & Spa, and held on their vast grounds, the fun includes three early morning and two evening launches. The morning launches are more for the pilots; it’s their play time. Spectators are welcome, but only the most intrepid are there for the early flights. At 4:00pm on Friday and Saturday, the gates open for the evening launches, which usually take place around 6:30pm, and that’s when the crowds start pouring in. Green Mountain Coffee has sponsored the festival for several years, and this year our sampling set-up featured our new Brew Over Ice K-Cups. In the middle of a fortnight of unusually high temperatures, attendees were thrilled to try the iced coffees and teas, and were delighted to learn that their Keurig brewers could open up this new dimension for them. While the French Vanilla iced coffee was probably the most popular choice, the delicious Southern Sweet tea was also a big hit. And everybody who tried it instantly fell in love with the iced Half and Half – our K-Cup version of an Arnold Palmer, half tea and half lemonade. So nice on a summer afternoon…trust me, I had plenty of them.
The whoosh of propane bursts filled the air, as the fanned heat began filling the balloons. It’s magical to watch yards of colorful fabric come to life as the heat slowly swells them into bulbous airships. A few eager people hop into the basket, and sail up into uncertainty. By managing short blasts of intense concentrated flames pilots can control the altitude, but when it comes to direction, there is no way to steer a hot air balloon. Those smiling people are at the mercy of the wind, destination unknown.
My destinations, alas, are a bit more scripted. After a fabulous weekend of watching imaginations soar, it’s off to events in Boston, New York City, Rockland, Maine, and beyond. It’s a tough job, sharing the splendors of Green Mountain Coffee beverages, but someone’s got to do it. I’m glad that someone is me.
Hope to see you at an event sometime soon. You’ll know me by the smile and hyper-activity. Or by the family of skunks….