New York State Festival of Balloons

Our most recent adventure was this past weekend. We went to Dansville, NY, for the New York State Festival of Balloons.

It was fun, but we were only there for an hour. It was sweltering. There were a few bounce houses that kids of all ages could play in. We weren’t comfortable letting Murphy play in them because Ben would want to join, and he isn’t big enough. Murphy (3) and went and played in a hot air balloon. That was cool (and I feel like that’s something we don’t get to do every day).

We did watch them set up one of the balloons, but we didn’t get to see them launch any. It was a windy day, so it took some time, and the kids were getting hungry. We walked around to see what they had to offer for food, but we didn’t see anything worth waiting in line for. So we just headed home. We did get to see one balloon launch while we were leaving. We had planned to go back and watch the lunch the next day, but the weather canceled all remaining launches.

We have family that lives close. They have a favorite spot that they like to go to and watch the balloons launch. We decided next year to have a picnic and watch the balloon launch from a distance.

If they had more stuff for little ones to do, I wouldn’t mind going. It was $5 for adults, and kids 12 and under were free. It was $2 per person to play in the hot air balloon. We had only spent $12, which is family-friendly. However, it is an hour’s drive, one way for us to spend an hour walking around. In the long run, it’s just not worth it.