Temecula Balloon and Wine Festival

Last weekend, Kuya decided to bring all of us (us being, of course, Liz, Aidan, and myself) to the Temecula Balloon and Wine Festival. Temecula is about an hour's drive away from Buena Park, and it's smack in the middle of nowhere, the better to view hot air balloons from. According to the brochure, we would see balloons glowing, so that sounded pretty exciting. When we got there, we went crazy with country fair food. You could buy any kind of food you wanted, sausages, cotton candy, funnel cakes, etc. It brought back memories of the school fairs I went to back home, where my friends and I would gorge on all the different kinds of food that you could find at the booths.

After getting ourselves shrimp balls, fish tacos, and other picnic food, we settled on the grass to wait for the balloon show. Kuya checked out the wine booth, where you could taste seven glasses of different kinds of wine for $15, a good deal all around. Unfortunately, the deal was so good that half of the people in the fair were lining up for it. So, we nixed the wine idea, and just waited for the show while listening to bands playing all sorts of music. We got all excited when the balloonists began setting up their balloons. There were five balloons set up where we were sitting. They were firing them up so the balloons lit up. We were waiting for the balloons to launch into the air and glow, but apparently, the glowing was all we were going to get. Aidan was shouting at the balloonists to fly, but apparently the show was to be held purely on the ground. Though we were disappointed that the balloons didn't actually fly, it was still a pretty sight. No wine, no flying balloons... but the glowing balloons were pretty cool, and we did get to stuff ourselves with fair food. Aidan and I also had fun running around on the fairgrounds. Liz and I amused ourselves by laughing at people who were trying (unsuccessfully) to dance to the music. All in all, not a bad way to spend a Saturday evening.