For many people New Haven’s annual Balloon Glow and Festival is one of the most exciting happenings in New Haven. It brings in a lot of traffic and provides a lot of promotion for our small country town.
This year’s festival had new booths and brought in plenty of new people. Main Street Creamery from Washington had a booth this year that got a great deal of good feedback. Senior Alex Trentmann stated, “The Main Street Creamery was pretty nice and had some delicious ice cream.”
The NHHS Cheerleading squad had a cotton candy booth that seemed to be very popular. In addition, Penn State Chicken’s booth was also very prosperous, with a line of 50 plus people at all times.
Opinions were mixed this year on some of the booths though. Alex Trentmann mentioned, “Some booths that are there need to improve. I'd get barely warm food or food would start running out and people would start reserving in advance.”
Freshman Destiney Quick added to that, saying, “I’d like to see more drink booths. All the booths are always right next to each other and the lines are always so long. If all you want is something to drink, you will be in line forever.”
We even had some of our very own New Haven High students flying in the race. Junior McKenzie Pecaut was lucky enough to get to experience flight in a hot air balloon: “We started to get higher and higher, and you could see miles of land in front of you. People looked like tiny specks!” she said.
She continued describing how she felt during the ride by saying, “It felt exhilarating to be up that high. I saw deer running through fields. Cows and horses were running all over the place.”
Many people were shocked by the amount of traffic that was brought to New Haven this year because of the Balloon Fest. Senior Julia Unnerstall stated, “It was crazy! It took me 15 minutes just to get to Save A Lot!”
Destiney Quick added, “Friday night, there was so much traffic.”
Every year, it seems that the Balloon Festival gets bigger. I’m sure everyone is excited to see how it grows in future years and enjoy the happiness and excitement it brings to our small community.