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Stanley’s Adventure in Mexico

Scott, Miss Laurie, Stanley, Doyle and Bob are in Leon, Mexico.

While they are there, they will be out of communication with the office. If possible, they will start sending photo updates only on December 11.

In the meantime … here is a link to the website of “Festival Del Globo” in Leon:

http://festivaldelglobo.com

The site is written in Spanish, but there are lots of pictures.

Stanley Visits Mexico

Greetings from Guanajuato (pronounced Guan O Hot O), Leon (Lee Own), Mexico.

Miss Laurie, Doyle, Bob, Stanley and I arrived safely after a seven hour plane ride from Boise. After we got off the plane and went through customs we were met by the friendly staff of “Festival Del Globo” (festival of the balloon) who took us in a van to our hotel in downtown Leon.

Guanajuato is like our “State” only is pronounced before the city name, which is Leon. The City of Leon (Leon means the “Lion”) is home to almost two million people. Our hotel is called “Real D Minas”, the real is pronounced “Ree Al” and is a beautiful oasis for us in an otherwise “colorful” area.

This is a busy, interesting city boys and girls. Most people that work here work in a business that has something to do with leather. There are a couple of gigantic malls here that sell nothing but shoes, or coats, or belts, or hats or pants... you get the idea.

It isn’t like anything we are used to in the states. Streets are narrow and stores are not at all what we have at home. Stores get placed anywhere a person can find a spot to show his/her items that are for sale.

The Festival provides a bus for us to use as transportation. Pilots and crews get on the bus and are transported to the festival launch site. It isn’t like anything we have at home ... the event (sponsored by Coca-Cola) set up tents for us to uncrate our equipment in and get ready to fly ... as you can see, our balloons aren’t the only things that occupy the tents.

So, I guess you can see that our first day here was very educational for us. Sunset was beautiful and we look forward to our first day of flying.

Our days are going to be long ... we start in the morning at 4:30 a.m. for the trip to the launch site, have a launch time of 7:30 a.m. and a glow planned for later in the evening.

Day 2

Our day started very, very early today ... at 4:30 a.m. a beautiful voice on the phone told us that "The sun has risen, a new day has begun"... isn’t that a nice way to wake up?

We loaded our tired bodies on to the bus for the trip to the launch site where pilot briefing is scheduled to begin at 6:00 a.m.

Here is our pilot briefing ... yes, its a grass shack ! At briefing we are told about weather and restrictions in the area we will be flying in. The Mexican Air Authority isn’t to sure about balloons, so they have told us where we can and can not fly and how high we can go, today, it is no more than 2,000 feet above the ground.

These kids are helping Stanley and Bob send our weather balloon in to the sky so that we know which way the wind is blowing. The balloon will tell us which way we will go.

Then it is time to fly. 35 balloons will fly from the beach of a large lake just outside downtown Leon ... its a very beautiful place to fly. Crews chase some of the balloons with boats !

We landed on the other side of the lake and were towed to shore... than we loaded the balloon in the back of our chase truck and “drove” it back to a place we could deflate.

Pretty fancy chase truck don’t you think? Well, it isn’t what we are used to, and we sure miss not having our motor homes, but we couldn’t have had a better volunteer crew! They are quickly becoming our good friends.

I want you to know that Stanley is making friends too. In fact, he has become very popular here in Leon. Everyone wants their picture taken with him.

And then there are kids that I just can’t help photographing ... they are thrilled to see the “Globo’s” (the balloons) and just a joy to be around. These have to be some of the most

wonderful people we have ever met in our travels. Their lives are not easy when compared to you or I, but we have learned on this trip that kids are kids no matter where we are.

As I mentioned, our days are long. It was after noon before the bus got us back to the hotel and it left us very little time before we had to return to the launch site for the glow. We’ve learned quickly, to grab a nap when ever we have an opportunity.

I really didn’t have a chance to take any pictures tonight at the first “Nite Glow”. It was a bit windy so Stanley and the entire crew was pretty busy... sorry about that because it was a beautiful sight... the Mexicans lit torches all around the lake and shot fireworks while we glowed the balloons.

It is after midnight here now, and I must get some rest myself. In a few hours we’ll be flying our Coca-Cola Bottle balloon and we need to be well rested.

I should mention I’m having a “spot of bother” here. I’m a big fan of television and I don’t have much to watch other than about 50 Spanish speaking stations. The Simpson’s are on right now, and the voice of Bart and the rest of the characters sound nothing like what we are used to... very strange! Miss Laurie was good enough to bring a DVD player and some movies for me to watch. Thank Goodness!!!

After the flight tomorrow, we will be taking Stanley out to play tourist... should be fun.

Day 3

It is Friday night in Mexico and we have had a fantastic day today. We visited one of the most remarkable cities you could ever imagine.

Before I tell you about that, I wanted to share a few things about the hotel we are staying in. You’ve already seen pictures of the pool area, but I wanted to share a bit about the actual location and what it looks like. First, you need to know that a good “Bellman” in a hotel, especially in a foreign country can make your visit a success or a complete disaster.

This is “OUR” guy, Alex. He runs this hotel. You want to know how to get somewhere in Leon or the surrounding area, Alex has the cab or van and the safest person to drive you. You need to know where to eat ... Alex sends you. He is great. Every morning he asks if Stanley is having a good trip.

When you first arrive at the hotel, this is what you see. It is all marble and so clean you could eat from it. The really cool thing is that you have to go through a short tunnel to get to it. Hotels here don’t have gigantic parking lots. They are built just off major streets and every inch of ground is important ... so there are stores along the street, and the hotel behind the stores. (The front of the building doesn’t look this good) OK, more about the hotel later, on to today’s flight.

Today we inflated the Contour Bottle Balloon. We try and tell people how big it is, but until they see it, they usually just don’t get it. Today was no exception.

Pretty big isn’t it ? the balloon in the picture above is a small one, even so, it would take almost three Tony Balloons, stacked one on top of the other, to be as tall as the Contour Coca-Cola Bottle.

After we finished with the bottle, we still had good weather so we took out the “round” Coke balloon for a quick hop. I flew over a beautiful mansion where two people were standing on the roof holding signs asking for a ride, so I decided to land in their back yard and take them for a short ride.

I think they were pretty surprised at first, after I landed, but if you’re going to stand on a roof and hold up a sign around me that says free food... well... you need to expect that we’ll be dropping in.

What I know these nice people didn’t expect, was my ground crew showing up at their home too ... remember, we have a pretty big crew here. I shouldn’t have worried, our hosts had chocolate croissants and hot chocolate for everyone that wanted it.

These wonderful people welcomed us into their home, toured Miss Laurie and I through it (their beautiful home even has an indoor swimming pool, and at the touch of a button, the roof slides away to let the sun shine in). They invited us (and of course Stanley, to come back for a visit any time we wanted, and to stay as long as we wanted. What a great place this is!

Speaking of our crew, it is about time I showed them off to you...

Pretty good looking gang don’t you think?

Now check this out... this is how we get around here in Leon, our local Crew Chiefs, the two Ricardo’s and Pablo brought us their truck to use. This was a very generous thing for them to do, as they use it (and depend on it) in their business.

Well, you’d think we’d had about as cool a day as anyone ever gets by the time noon came around, but we weren’t done yet. We found out that Crew Chief Pablo was from Guanajuato City, the Capital of the State of Guanajuato, and he offered to take us there for a look around.

Boys and girls, I can’t tell you what an incredible opportunity this is. Guanajuato City is one of those rare places on the earth where time stands still. This city of nearly 75,000 people appears today, very much as it did almost 300 years ago.

The town was built upon the rocky hills. In the hills, was one of the richest silver mines found anywhere in the world. Even today, many of the old mine tunnels have been enlarged and are used to move traffic in and out of the city.

The only other place I’ve ever seen that is anything like this is Lead, South Dakota, home of the worlds deepest gold mine, but this place makes Lead pale in comparison.

Enjoy these pictures of one of the most unique and interesting places on earth.

And of course, Flat Stanley was there for every minute of the adventure!

What an opportunity we had this afternoon. That is Pablo on the left, he grew up in Guanajuato City, and still lives there today. His friend and business associate Ricardo in the middle taking a moment for a photo with Bob. How wonderful of Pablo and Ricardo to take the time to be our personal guides on this adventure. You just meet the neatest people ballooning.

Day 4

Hello Again –

Our time here in Mexico is coming to an end and it is time for us to think about returning home to Boise and getting ready to celebrate Christmas with our families and friends.

Our time here in Leon has been exciting and I wish more than anything, that we could have shared it with all of you, by having you here with us.

We’ve seen beautiful “Globos” (balloons) flying through the morning sky.