LEWISTON, Maine — The 29th annual Great Falls Balloon Festival drew people of all ages, holding their breath as they watched more than a dozen balloons take flight Sunday morning.
"Watching them all, all these balloons go off at once is thrilling," one person in the crowd said. "Everybody is in awe and everybody as a smile."
Balloon pilots from nine states, including Maine, made the trip to Lewiston to take part in the weekend-long celebration.
Balloon launches were cancelled Friday and Saturday due to weather conditions, but 17 balloons lifted off the ground Sunday morning at 6 a.m.
"These are adults, eyes wide," Paul Englehart, the festival's director of ballooning, said. "I think it's that, 'well you can fly in a plane, you can drive a car,' we have technology. Balloons don't have that. We go with the winds, wherever the winds take us. And I think that's the most amazing piece about it, and I think that's what people love."
Lewiston native Cindy Laplante has never missed a festival in nearly three decades. Sunday happened to be her birthday, and seeing the balloons take flight made her birthday extra special.
"I don't like getting up early, but I'll get up early every morning for this," she said.
The Great Falls Balloons Festival was created in 1992 with a mission to raise money for local nonprofits in the Lewiston-Auburn area. The weekend-long celebration featured hot-air balloons, food vendors and live music.
According to the festival website, the annual celebration typically attracts about 100,000 people to Simard-Payne Memorial Park in Lewiston throughout the weekend.