Great photos, Brent.
The time lapse was great. The Reno event has a good reputation among balloonists, and it draws a pretty good sample of balloons.
...They said there was nearly 100 balloons there today...
Multiply that by eight to ten, and that's the kind of balloon event I used to work at as a crew member. For about 15 years or so, I worked on (or ran) balloon crews at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. Ten days of up to 800 to 1000 balloons. Even after I moved to LA, I'd take a week off work every year to do the balloons. Had I not moved to LA, I would have likely gotten my pilot's license, about a year after I moved. (I was next in line...the people I was working with typically trained the crew chief to be a pilot. I was a chief, and my pilot had just gotten his commercial license. I was next, but I moved.) I haven't crewed since I broke my back 9 years ago (yesterday), but ballooning was the best excuse I ever had for getting up at 3:30 in the morning. Also the best excuse I ever had for drinking beer at 6:00 AM.
(Those were the crazy days, when I was working with a bunch of cops. The pilots never drank before the balloon was packed up and put away, but the crews weren't always that conscientious. Man, I could tell some stories.
) Later, I worked on crews for corporate balloons (Famous Footwear Tennis Shoe, Klondike Bar Polar Bear, Eveready Battery, Viewsonic Computer Monitor, and an 11-story tall Bald Eagle) so things were not quite as wild. The special shapes are much more involved to work on and control, so you really had to be on your game.
RE: The Smoky Bear balloon...I wrote the original proposal that went to the Forest Service trying to convince them to sponsor that balloon. (I wasn't involved financially, but I did it as a favor to the folks who I was crewing for.) The Forest Service was in the process of accepting the proposal, then someone up the chain of command stalled the deal. A couple years later, that balloon showed up, owned by someone else, but sponsored by the Forest Service. Apparently, someone took the idea (including the drawings of the balloon) and bypassed the people who originally proposed it.
RE: Photographs...back in the '90s, and probably to this day, the Albuquerque event is the most photographed yearly event in the world, according to Kodak. (The Rose Parade in Pasadena is the most photographed one-day event, but more film was purchased in ABQ in 10 days than any other event every year. I have 1.6 bajillion balloon photos, but they are all from the film era, and stored away where scanning them isn't practical. I've seen a lot of cool stuff over the years. (And a few cases of not-so-cool stuff.)
Sorry for the small novel, but I have a lot of history with balloons.
Cool stuff indeed, and I'm glad you got to experience it.