Balloons take to the sky in the mass accession during the 2009 Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.

What is really interesting about the mass accession is that the balloons--all 550 of them--take off at the same time. To be sure, "at the same time" means within a short period of time, and in practical terms, the balloons take off row by row, with perhaps 20 balloons in a row. As the dawn lights and the sun takes to the sky so do hundreds of balloons of every shape, size, color and style imaginable. The sight is absolutely incredible to behold and everywhere you look there are balloons everywhere.

And they just kept taking off. One by one, two by two, ten by ten and then the launching area was empty of balloons. Just a few stragglers here and there that for whatever reason failed to launch, but up the sky… now that was a different story entirely.