Not What They Expected

For the last few days things have been a bit crazy around our house.  Helicopters have been buzzing overhead, the entrance to our housing area has been blocked off and rerouted, strange people have been parking in front of our home, and in the background a loud PA system is going.  I think I am understanding what it must be like to be a celebrity, to have paparazzi all around.  However, the only reason all this is happening is that we to live a few blocks away from Cook Park and the Annual Tigard Balloon Festival.  Our house is under the flight pattern for the helicopter rides, we can hear the concerts without leaving our backyard, and we can watch the hot air balloons float lazily into the sky while sipping coffee. 

Last night we joined the crowds, paid our seven dollars to go to our park, which on any other day we can walk through for free, and had our bags searched. We sat amongst those who ventured into the Rouge Brewery Tent enjoying  Double Dead Guy at $4 a dixie cup and listened to a band play bad renditions of old favorites. Conversation in the beer tent was lively as more micro cups ere consumed, people who didn’t know each other shared tables, and we all waited in anticipation of the evening Balloon Glow.

For those of us who have attended more than once, we know what to expect during the evening Balloon Glow, but for those who had never been before, had paid their seven dollars to get in, and were now drinking many small sipper cups of Rouge beer at $4 a pop, the anticipation was unbearable.  The hot air balloons slowly filled with air, seven in all.  As the air was heated inside the balloon, the entire balloon would glow from the flame.  A local radio station interviewed the balloon pilots.  We joked with our table mates, a foul mouthed hair dresser from California who couldn’t wait to move to Oregon and her boy friend, and another couple who informed us that proper table sharing educate involved the buying of the whole table beer anytime you got one yourself, and our friends who asked if we would join them for the event.  I received a leg hair removal demonstration from my new hair dresser friend via a bumper sticker she affixed to my leg, the table discussed housing prices, Darla again discovered that hoppy beer does not make her happy, and as we turned back to watch the balloons, one by one they deflated.  Our new friends and first time festival goers asked, “Is that it?????  The Balloons don’t go up in the air???”  One stated, “I paid $7 for that, I’m going to get his money back (and pointed to her husband or boyfriend, we never did find out which).”  All around us was disappointment, having been before I remembered how I too had been disappointed years earlier by the same realization.  I was sure the reason for the beer tent was to get us to the point where it really didn’t matter if the balloons took off or not.  As we all left feeling a bit taken advantage of, we ran into a guy selling cigars.  He had no permit, was not in one of the booths, but having enjoyed his night he gave me and my buddy a little bandito, which was only appropriate after drinking little beers, and we walked back to our house to smoke our banditos and finish a bottle of beer before ending our night.

This morning I hear no helicopters, the PA is quite, and I am assuming the end of the festival is near.  You have to get up early to watch the balloons float into the air, but at that time you can’t get any dixie cup beer, so you decide what is more important to you.  I’ll be going back again next year.  After all it is almost in my backyard.