Article and Photos By: Len and Phil Rapoport
Yoda, Darth Vader, the Seahorse, Baby Blue, Baby Dino, the Pepsi Football, Panda and many others. The traditional round shaped balloons are called “tear drop” shaped balloons and there were many of those at this festival as you can see in our photos.
We had an opportunity to interview the Pilot Frank Wechter of the Darth Vader hot air balloons who tells you a bit more about this world-famous balloon. We also got to meet the owner of this and the Yoda balloon Michel Lambert from who told us they fly this balloon in many international shows around the world. Visit their amazing website for more information about these two balloons and much more.
Our Day Two Video – Saturday July 25, 2015
If you have come to this page first you may want to go to our first day of coverage of the huge festival. Click Here now and come back.
I normally only attend any event we cover one day. The reason is the time and effort to cover the event and the massive amount of time to edit the hundreds of photos and hours of video footage I shoot.
This festival is one that really takes more than a day to cover properly. So my wife and I decided to go both Friday and then again on Saturday to capture the Saturday Night Balloon Glow which was supposed to start at 8 PM and many of the balloon put on a beautiful show when they light up their balloons with searing hot propane flames and the balloons all glow.
Unfortunately due to a late ascension on Saturday due to weather conditions there was no Balloon Glow presentation.
That said we still had an opportunity to get some additional photos and video footage. We arrived late on Saturday about 6 PM and all the exhibitors were closed or closing.
The Beez Foundation
We wanted to visit the Beez Foundation because of the great charitable work they do helping those with brain cancer.
Jennifer Giardina who works at Ophthalmic Physicians
of Monmouth, Dr. Klug’s office, in their Trust Optical department, told me about her aunt’s work and the loss of her daughter to this type of cancer. So I wanted to stop by, get them in our video and help get them some donations.
My own cousin lost his daughter to a rare form of cancer as well and formed the Jennifer Diamond Foundation. They have a wonderful facility in California that offers many services to those that are battling cancer and their families.
Parents that lose their children to so many and rare diseases often honor them by raising funds for research and some form these wonderful foundations. I fully support their efforts as you all should.
View Our Photo Gallery Now
We have included a number of photos in our gallery to give you a better idea of the festival and hope you have already read our First Day article with its own photo gallery and video.
Our 1st Days Video’s and More Information…click here now
How to view our photos and see a slide show
When you click on an image file it will open in a new window. Close this window by clicking the X in the upper left corner of the page. It will close that image and now reveal our slide show option which also offers a manual way to view each image with left and right arrows on the bottom right of each image file. You can also click an image to advance to the next one too.
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