The Great Forest Park Balloon Race (Balloon Glow)

The Great Forest Park Balloon Race is preceded by the Balloon Glow. The race is sponsored by Energizer® (2008 was the 36th anniversary of the Race). The Energizer® Bunny balloon is the first balloon to leave the park with the other 'hound' balloons (72 this year) chasing it. The Balloon Glow takes place the night before the race & starts at about 7:30pm, before it gets dark. The weather was really great this year so the event was absolutely jammed with people (we had a 20 minute walk from the car). You could, however, still get 'up close & personal' with the balloons as they were inflated. By about 8:30pm, all the balloons were up & it was getting dark so you could really begin to see the balloons light up when the burners were turned on. Periodically a horn would sound & all the balloons would turn their burners on at the same time (which looked really cool). Fireworks were scheduled for 9:00pm, but since we thought that the real event was the balloons, we decided to leave early & try to miss the traffic (year, right!). We needn't have worried about the fireworks as the event was shown on the local news just after we got home.