SEQUIM — Their ages differ by 55 years, but Jovelle Dewey and Emily Westcott gushed with the same degree of enthusiasm Saturday after alighting from a hot-air balloon ride 50 feet in the air.
“It was fun,” they exclaimed in unison after floating for several minutes in the tethered RE/MAX hot-air balloon at the inaugural three-day Sequim Balloon Festival.
The festival at 792 West Sequim Bay Road — near the Holiday Inn Express and Black Bear Diner at 1441 E. Washington St. — continues today and Monday.
It runs from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. today, then concludes Monday, when activities are set from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Single-day passes to the festival are $19, with children 11 and younger admitted free when accompanied by an adult ticket-holder.
A three-day pass to the festival that began Saturday costs $29.
Balloon rides over the valley leave from Sequim Valley Airport at 468 Dorothy Hunt Lane in Carlsborg — about a dozen balloons are out there — at 6 a.m., with flights set this morning and Monday for $250 a ride.
Rides began last Monday.
Sign-ups are required and may be obtained by emailing hazel@brokersgroup.com.
The RE/MAX balloon that Dewey, 13, and Westcott, 68, floated in over the festival was tethered to three vehicles and lorded over all manner of activities that were enveloped Saturday by exquisite weather.
Festival offerings include 75 food and craft booths, a classic car show, 17 musical groups and pony rides, all at Fred and Loretta Grant’s mowed field.
Rides in the tied-down RE/MAX balloon are offered from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. each day. The cost is a donation to benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula.
The ride “wasn’t very scary for me,” said Dewey, a soon-to-be eighth-grader at Sequim Middle School who remembered Westcott, now retired, as a substitute teacher.
Westcott is also a private pilot, so she wanted to go even higher, she said.
It was her understanding that at 3,000 feet in the bulbous aircraft, it’s so quiet “you can hear dogs barking,” she said.
Festival spokeswoman Susan Hedding of Sequim, herself a retired balloon pilot, said that’s true.
Hedding said the stillness when you’re way up above it all is part of the joy of riding a hot-air balloon, the sole purpose of which is fun.
You do need perfect weather, something festival organizers were acutely aware of when they planned the event.
Research of 30 years of weather showed that the first three days of September were the best ballooning days of the year in Sequim — not too warm, not too windy.
“So far, right on,” Hedding said as she walked the grounds.
Still, at 11 a.m., a slight wind made for not-the-best ballooning weather, which is usually around 6 a.m.
“Already, the breeze is a little squirrelly,” Hedding said as the RE/MAX balloon slowly swayed like a metronome.
By 11:15 a.m., the approximately seven-story-tall balloon was deflating into a shape and size small enough — although extremely heavy — to fit into the back of a pickup truck, Hedding said.
Kelly Jo Hill, the coordinator of 300 volunteers, was on her cellphone with the site coordinator.
She needed diesel gas for the water trailer.
“I’m the problem-solver,” said Hill, who looked the part.
She wore sunglasses, a cap and a fanny pack, and walked around the festival area with her mobile phone at the ready.
Hill also coordinates volunteers for the Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival in Port Angeles, which is Oct. 12-14.
As hard as she works, nothing would happen without the volunteers themselves.
“Without question, they are the backbone,” she said.
By 1 p.m. Saturday, several hundred people were enjoying the festival, Hedding said.
Hedding said organizers hope to make it a regular event, comparing it to one particular happening that draws people to Sequim from all over.
“This is like the lavender festival, but it’s different,” she said.
“There’s a huge difference,” Hedding added.
“The pilots who have been flying all week have been very happy,” she said.
“They get high enough to see Mount Rainier on their flights.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
