This is Not the Post I Meant to Have for You

I had been looking forward to the balloon glow all week. A friend was meeting me and my son. A balloon glow is an outside event, so we could socially distance ourselves from strangers. I’ve been to balloon glows before in a rural setting and enjoyed the contrast between ambient light and the light filtering through the balloon’s fabric.

I had big plans to take some great shots of the balloons starting their glow while dusk was starting to fall. My idea was to use them to illustrate the concept of needing contrast to see certain things. The balloons don’t glow in daylight.

But I didn’t get any great shots. We got there as the sun was setting and there were dark clouds making the sky a dramatic backdrop. It should have been the ideal set up. But my son wanted a funnel cake, so we got into a long and crowded line. As we inched closer to the food truck the light went from being just perfect to being-meh. And the vendor didn’t take debit cards, so we walked away without a funnel cake.

No great photos. No funnel cake. A lot more people than I care to be around these days. (We masked up when the crowd got too close.)

And yet, it was a lovely evening. The weather was perfect, the company delightful and we had a nice bit of exercise walking to the field where the balloons had gathered. It was nice to get out on a Friday evening. Good enough.