At 5:45 a.m. on Sunday, May 18, a hot air balloon lifted into the sky. It rose above a dinosaur sculpture made from scrap lumber and used nails and a wooden building filled with sewing machines, dusty beer bottles and plastic flamingos. This is the Post Mills Airport, located 17 miles from Hanover in the town of Thetford, Vt. For years, it has served as the site of the Experimental Balloon & Airship Association Meet, which took place this year from May 16 through May 18.
The EBAA was established by Brian Boland, a pilot and creator of hot air balloons who died in 2021, according to his partner Tina Foster. Boland became interested in ballooning while working on his master’s thesis at the Pratt Institute, where he built his first balloon as a “piece of big sculpture,” Foster said.
According to Foster, Boland “fell in love” with ballooning and became fascinated by the idea of “experimental” or “home-built” balloons, as compared to “type-certificated” balloons made in factories that must adhere to specific regulations.
“He loved making his own balloons and his goal was always to make either really interesting balloons or really light, portable balloons,” Foster said.
According to Foster, Boland purchased the Post Mills Airport in 1988 and eventually began hosting an annual EBAA gathering with one rule — whatever aircraft participants brought had to be home-built or experimental.
Boland held the gathering until 2001, then suspended it from 2001 until 2014, according to the Valley News. Foster said the event became “too big and too rowdy” to continue. The EBAA Meet restarted in 2014 and has taken place annually or biannually since then, according to the Valley News — though it was canceled in 2020 due to COVID-19 — and Foster hopes to keep it going for years to come. She now runs the event with one of Boland’s students, Jordan Long.
Foster said that many balloonists find out about the EBAA Meet through “word of mouth.” This year, balloonists from as far as Georgia and Florida attended, though Foster said the stormy weather led to a smaller number of attendees than in previous years.
David Bristol, a balloonist from outside of Helen, Ga. who counts ballooning as a “lifelong passion” said that he first attended the EBAA Meet in 2021. He currently frequents four to five balloon festivals per year, but the EBAA Meet is his favorite because of the community of experienced balloonists who attend.
According to Bristol, at larger balloon festivals like the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, N.M., “you get all levels of experience.” By contrast, at the EBAA Meet, pilots are “pretty experienced.”
“You trust them and you know who you’re flying with,” Bristol said. “It takes the fun out of [a larger festival] if you can’t relax and enjoy it. Here, you can just relax and float around.”
Bristol said that the experimental nature of the EBAA Meet also adds to his enjoyment.
“At most balloon events, they probably wouldn’t want our balloons. They would want a certified balloon,” Bristol said. “Here, we’ve all built our balloons and baskets … originally it was a one-of-a-kind event, so it’s neat to see everybody’s interpretation of what it should be.”
Aaron Johnson, a balloonist who lives “up the road” from the airport in Vershire, Vt., initially got into ballooning through skydiving. Johnson said he wanted to “jump out of the balloons” and first met Boland when he asked Boland to let him jump out of his balloon.
“We became friends and he finally let me jump,” Johnson said. “He always said he wouldn’t teach me to fly because I was too close … then one day he said, ‘get in, you’re flying,’ and the rest is history.”
Johnson does not attend other balloon festivals, but said that he enjoys the EBAA Meet because both the balloonists and the residents of surrounding towns are “just fantastic.”
“Around here, the locals are very supportive of the balloons,” he said. “They love the balloons wherever you go … even if you land in somebody’s backyard.”
Foster said that many locals spectate the meet when the weather is nice. On May 16, despite an evening rainstorm, Foster estimated that “at least several hundred people” came to see the balloons.
“The preschool across the street comes to sell hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner, and people line up all the way across the runway,” Foster said. “One night they sold 800 or 1,000 burgers.”
In addition to locals, a handful of Dartmouth students attended this year’s EBAA Meet, many of whom learned about the event through Meg Keating ’26. Keating attended the meet in 2024, when clear skies made for prime flight conditions.
“I went [to the meet] Sunday morning last year and it was insane,” Keating said. “They had 20 [balloons] up at one point … I feel such an attachment to that place because I think it’s so cool.”
Keating first learned about the Post Mills Airport after a friend told her about the ‘Vermontasaurus,’ a dinosaur sculpture on the property. In addition to hosting the EBAA Meet, the airport boasts both this sculpture and the Experimental Balloon and Airship Museum, also known as Brian’s Museum of Rusty Dusty Stuff or The Scrap Palace, according to signs inside the museum. The museum is closed to the public during the rest of the year, though visitors can view the collection through Dutch half-doors, according to the Roadside America website.
Boland finished the Museum in 1994, according to Foster, and it is filled with “stuff … usually stuff you find by the side of the road.”
“There’s a lot of ballooning artifacts — baskets and old retired balloons — a couple planes, some interesting old cars and a million dentist chairs, because he knew a guy who used to refurbish dentist chairs,” Foster said.
In 2007, the roof of the museum collapsed, according to the Roadside America website. Johnson, Boland and other community members then used the wood from the museum’s roof and “used, rusty nails” to create the Vermontasaurus.
The Vermontasaurus, the Museum of Rusty Dusty Stuff and the EBAA Meet might seem to be three entirely different entities, linked only by the Post Mills Airport. Yet, all three were created by Boland. Keating has visited the airport to see the Museum and the Vermontasaurus “30 times” in the past year, in part because she’s drawn to Boland’s “presence.”
“I am baffled by what he was able to accomplish when he was alive and the fact that he built all of these things,” she said. “It’s so cool that he had such a zest for life. A lot of people lose that as they get older.”
Foster said that for her, the most meaningful part of the EBAA Meet is how it brings “a great group of people” together at the airport who keep Boland’s memory alive.
“I love to see the airport used,” Foster said. “This is a special gathering, and you feel that when they’re here and honoring Brian’s memory … I just hope we can keep it going, and that’s our plan.”
