Hot air balloon festival + more family-friendly events await†plan your Gulf Coast vacay now bhamnow.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bhamnow.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
FOLEY - With the 2021 Gulf Coast Hot Air Balloon Festival still fresh on your mind, you may not be thinking about next year’s festival quite yet. At the South Baldwin Chamber of Commerce, …
Gulf Coast Hot Air Balloon Festival ready for takeoff
Updated May 07, 11:20 AM;
Posted May 07, 10:58 AM
Balloons rise shortly after dawn on Friday, May 7, 2021, in a demonstration for the weekend s Gulf Coast Hot Air Balloon Festival.Lawrence Specker | LSpecker@AL.com
Facebook Share
“It’s a simple machine,” said Steve Stokoe. “Make it think it’s light, it goes up. Make it think it’s heavy, it goes down.”
Stokoe, 61, a retired firefighter from the Tampa area, was one of more than a dozen pilots setting up their hot air balloons just after sunrise Friday at OWA, the entertainment complex in Foley. Wet ground, of all things, had caused the cancellation of planned demonstration flights: Nobody wanted to land in a field turned into a marsh by recent heavy rains. A “static display” of tethered aerostats was designed to give onlookers a taste of what the annual Gulf Coast Hot Air Balloon Festival will offer this weekend.