Hot air balloons, a 50 year old cold case mystery, my new friend Monika and a day at the beach

All of the things in the subject title above happened this weekend. Its been a busy few days!

First I got up at dark o'clock Saturday morning to photograph the Gulf Coast Hot Air Balloon festival.










Then I went back to bed and slept for a few more hours. Got up around noon (still Saturday), went into work and worked on some online galleries. Then back to Baldwin county to cover a gathering of family and friends who are looking for a man who disappeared as a little boy 50 years ago. They believe he is still out there and they gathered at the spot that the disappearance took place for a candlelight vigil.









I transmitted those images from a hotel in Pensacola, then went to a place called "the bayfront" where car enthusiasts gather on the weekends. It was awesome! It felt good to get back into a local car scene. I met a girl I had talked to online before, she drives a car similar to mine. Here she is with my car (her's is broke at the moment).



I was able to sleep in Sunday morning. I had to cover the Junior Misses on beach day over at Dauphin Island which is located south of Mobile, on the other side of Mobile Bay from where I live. I travelled over to Dauphin Island by ferryboat, had a great time and met some cool people on the ferry.



At Dauphin Island I photographed the Junior Misses swimming and building sand sculptures for a contest. The whole time I was wanting to swim and I guess one of my Speedlights felt the same way because it jumped off my camera and plunged into the Gulf. I guess it will be getting a rebuild by Canon now. I decided to put my gear away at the end and went for a swim as well. Suddenly the Junior Misses were interested in taking pictures of me, I'm not sure exactly how that happened.