With Roseholme Cottage being only a dozen or so blocks north of the Fairgrounds, they usually pass directly overhead or slightly to our east. Every year they manage to catch me by surprise because I'd forget to check when the race was scheduled to occur, and so I'd be walking out the door to go to the range with Shootin' Buddy and look up to see the sky overhead dotted with balloons and me without a camera.
Not this year, though! This year I checked ahead of time, and made sure I was out of bed and dressed this morning early enough to catch the 7:30AM launch. The 1Ds Mark II had memory cards and a freshly-charged battery in it and the 70-200mm lens mounted, and I grabbed it and ran out on the front lawn...
To be greeted by an empty sky.
Peering around, I finally spotted a balloon in a gap in the trees just over the peak of the next-door neighbor's roof.
Figures. The one year I was prepared, the winds aloft were carrying the balloons west-northwest from the Fairgrounds.
Ah, well... Next year.
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