Friday, October 10, 2008

Not so much.


So every year we take our children to the glowdeo at the balloon fiesta.  I have never paid for parking simply because by the time you wait in line to get to the lot you could have already parked and walked in which is what we always end up doing.  We park about a block away and walk into the park and save ourselves the $10.00 and the annoyance of to listening to overexcited kids asking why it's taking so long.  Normally aside from a little bit of traffic on the way this has always been a pleasurable experience.  This year however-not so much.
We left our house at about 6:00 the traffic was as always irritating but for some reason when you got near the park they directed you in the complete opposite direction and made you do some weird u-turn thing and wait in more traffic.  I think I can say that it was not just us that were annoyed by this, because about 45 minutes into waiting to go the complete opposite way of the park we gave up and found a parking lot and turned into it along with about 50 other cars.  We took our chances and walked which took us about 35 minutes just to get to the entrance.  By the time we got in it was just about dark and the balloons had already started to glow.  The kids were super excited and it was as always neat to look at.  The glow lasted about 25 minutes and then all the balloons deflated immediately.  GRRR!! All that for 25 minutes.  I fed the baby as quickly as I could and we headed to the exit but there were soooooo many people (who were most offended by us trying to steer a stroller through the crowd) that it took us another 15 minutes to get to the exit.  The fireworks started as we were walking out and the kids got to watch them as we hauled it back to the car.  We got home at about 9:15 and put 3 tired kids to bed-over 3 hours of time just for about 25-30 minutes of glowdeo. I was thoroughly disappointed and my husband and I agreed that we may skip out on the whole thing next year.  

Sorry for the rant
Jami

2 comments:

Treselaine said...

Highly recommend park and ride. Buy your tickets on line before noon and you get a great discount. No traffic, but some lines on the way back. Besides, next year Strider (or is it Stryder) will be saying OOOH at the fireworks and pointing to the balloons saying UP.

Jami said...

We have never tried that but maybe next year. We thought about taking the kids to Gardunos and watching it from there next year. Thanks for the info though.