LEWISTON — Heavy fog disappointed those hoping to see the first soaring balloon of the Lewiston-Auburn Balloon Festival. Low visibility grounded the first launch Friday, but six of the festival’s 15 balloons were inflated for the crowd gathered early at the Simard-Payne Memorial Park in Lewiston.

“As always, if the weather conditions are great, they’ll launch. They can launch any time of the day. It gets difficult as the day goes on and the winds start to get up and the convector activity gets more. It’s not looking good for this morning, but the evening’s looking really nice,” Scottie Burge, an operations air safety inspector with the Federal Aviation Administration said after the launch was called off.

“We have to have a thousand feet before the clouds, and we won’t have that until 11 (a.m.) You might see the fog start to dissipate on the ground after 8 (a.m.) but it’s still going to be foggy up there,” local balloonist Jim Rodrigue said. Rodrigue and his crew are in charge of ‘Tailwinds,’ a balloon featuring green, yellow, and blue.

The fog is not expected to last all day.

Keith Sproul sits directly on top of a fuel tank Friday morning as he takes a tethered ride over the Lewiston-Auburn Balloon Festival at Simard-Payne Memorial Park in Lewiston. The Balloon Meister, who is responsible for making safety decisions, canceled the morning’s launch after thick fog inhibited visibility. Typically, balloons are only launched in the early morning or at dusk when air currents are most stable. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

“It should break up in the next couple of hours. Probably by midday,” Michael Cempa, lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s forecast office in Gray, said. “It should be OK for the balloon launching this evening.”

The winds are expected to be fair Friday evening. “Winds are going to be fairly light. I don’t think wind will be an issue. Your winds will be generally around five miles an hour from the southeast. That shouldn’t cause any problems,” Cempa said. Temperature will be in the low 70s, he added.

“There’s a very outside chance of a light shower moving through. Probably less than 20% actually. That is closer to 4 o’clock and then after that, it should be going down,” Cempa said. There could be fog early in the morning again, both on Saturday and Sunday.

The Morrison family was at the festival grounds bright and early Friday. Traveling from Maryland and New York to visit family, several members of the family were hoping to ride the first balloon.

“(Maine) used to be home. We used to live here, and my parents still live here. We come up to visit every summer, and so it happened that the balloon festival was this weekend,” Brett Morrison said. The family, like many others, was disappointed to hear the ride called off.

Jim Rodrigue, far left, gives the disappointing news to Chip Morrison, left, his son Brett, grandson Aaron, and granddaughter Sara that the Lewiston-Auburn Balloon Festival balloon launch had been canceled Friday morning due to visibility concerns. The Morrisons had traveled from Maryland to go on a balloon ride and visit family. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Six balloons, two of them specialty shape, were inflated soon after to make up for the bad news. Alain Bard’s “Alien Rocket” and Patrick Sullivan’s “Spyderpig” were the two specialty shape balloons.

“Spyderpig,” one of the 2024 specialty shape balloons, makes its first appearance Friday morning at the Lewiston-Auburn Balloon Festival at Simard-Payne Memorial Park in Lewiston. Balloons were either “stood up” or tethered during the morning’s launch. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

Bard said he built “Alien Rocket” himself, with over 1600 yards of fabric. It took him quite a bit of time to do so. “A year or two, because I just do it on the side. I don’t do it full time, so it takes me a year or two to build a balloon,” Bard.

In addition to the time commitment, balloon-building is far from cheap. It cost Bard “the price of a brand new small SUV” to build “Alien Rocket.”

Bard is an IT specialist from Ottawa, Canada. The Lewiston-Auburn Balloon Festival was what brought the balloon-enthusiast to Maine. Bard has flown “pretty much every kind of aircraft there is.” He said he likes the sense of anticipation ballooning offers.

“The cool thing about it is that unlike almost every other form of aviation, you have no idea what’s gonna happen or where you’re gonna land. It’s always an adventure on every flight, which I find really challenging and interesting,” Bard said.

Mark Fritze’s “Dogonit” balloon features four dogs, all rescues. “Two of them have passed, actually. The third one, we just put down last month but Clark’s is still around,” Fritze said. He has been flying balloons for 30 years. In the past, he has taken many local folks up in another balloon, “Freedom Flyer.”

“I had that balloon for 14 years. I have worn it out but it’s still in the shop. I’ve flown it for about 500 hours,” Fritze said. “It’s going to be all re-scanned with new blue. They’re going to take that print and transpose it onto the new blue,” he added.

For Fritze, it’s all about sharing the experience with others. “The thrill of just floating with the wind. I do it for the people that I get to take on board, who just really enjoy it,” Fritze said.

“We’ll do tree-hopping and go down the trees and just see what incredible gifts we have of plants. There’s some people who get bored at some point or whatever, but most of the time, you get those people who are just so excited to do it,” Fritze said. “We’ll do splash-and-dashes, we’ll do touch-and-goes. Every flight is different, we’ll do whatever we can pull off.”

“This is the best place to fly in the state. There’s fields in every direction and the people are friendly. This is wonderful. I’m glad they saved the festival,” Tom Hancock, a retired balloon pilot said.  Although Hancock does not fly anymore, he was on the festival grounds Friday morning to help out the crews.

“I love coming up here,” Hancock added.

For folks hoping to catch a glimpse of the soaring balloons, the Longley Bridge might not be a good option.

As of Friday, the traffic barrels are still up and a lane remains closed to vehicle traffic. Previously, the Lewiston waterline project’s construction was expected to wrap up a week before the festival.

“The weather hasn’t been favorable, but hopefully (Public Works) will get the lane stripes soon and the bridge can be reopened to traffic,” Lewiston’s Mayor Carl Sheline said Friday.

All morning and evening launches will be livestreamed at Sun Journal’s YouTube channel. Balloon updates also brings the latest news from the festival grounds in a play-by-play live blog format.