January 22-24, 2026

In January, I traveled to Lake Havasu which is on the Colorado River on the border of Arizona and California. Near by is a large lake formed by dams in the Colorado River and part of the city is also on a large island. The claim to fame as a tourist attraction is the London Bridge. The back history is that the London Bridge was built in the 1830 over the Thames River in London, England. In 1968, the bridge was sinking and could no longer bear the volume of traffic so they wanted to destroy the famed London Bridge. But to the rescue came a Lake Havasu real estate developer, Robert P. McCulloch, who bought the bridge for 2.5 million dollars. The bridge was deconstructed and the stone work was all numbered. The stones were transported to Arizona and the bridge was reconstructed with the original stones used on the outside cladding. More to read. This is what it looked like in 1972.

Above is how it looks today (Web photo). So why is Lake Havasu City a good place to have a hot air balloon festival? See the white spot top left of center and beyond, this is where the balloons are launched. Most of the time the winds are light and in a southerly direction which will take the balloons right over the bridge. You will see in this blog that this place is a photographers delight because the bridge is in the background. On Thursday afternoon and Friday morning the wind conditions were perfect. We also had excellent cloud formations. The rest of the time the wind was too strong and/or in the wrong direction.

The most skilled pilots try to touch the river with the balloon basket.

Then they must hop over the bridge. And some of them are able to touch the water a second time on the other side of the bridge.

In the evening, the balloons stay stationary and do what is known as a balloon glow where an announcer will try to get the pilots to turn on the propane burners all at once.

It’s quite warm/hot to stand by the ballon when they light the burner.

All good things must come to an end and the balloons are deflated and rolled up for the next day. They pull a cord to release a top panel and to let the hot gas come out.

The next morning proved to have excellent wind conditions as many balloons were able to touch down in the river. You may not know this but the balloon pilots have very little control over the directions that the balloon may take, only the wind currents and up and down.

There were also quite a few “shape” balloons in the mix. Here we have a Porky Pig, a Llama, and a raccoon.

The next series of photos shows how the balloons are inflated using first a powerful fan to blow air inside and then using the hot gas propane burner to get the balloon to stand upright.

Saturday morning the wind was not in the right direction to go over the bridge, but they inflated the balloons and a few launched anyway. In a special location the shape balloons were inflated. Then after awhile the porky pig balloon decided to make a short hop to where the other balloons were located.

Again it was time to deflate some of the balloons.

The next balloon is called Celebration and is hand painted by the artist Charles Markert. Every surface is filled with intricate depictions of mythological and classical figures in breathtaking realism. He has many other painted balloons to his credit.

Around the island are a series of one third size replica fully functioning famous lighthouses.

After two perfect sessions, the wind picked up and was in the wrong direction so there were no more flights over the bridge after Friday morning. I hope that you enjoyed the colorful balloons.