Albuquerque, NM (10-14-13)

After taking a day or so to recover from the non-stop activity of the Balloon Fiesta, we were ready to see what else there is to see in Albuquerque.  We’ve been here before and have seen all the stores in Old Town, so we elected not to go there. 

The Federal Shutdown has had an impact on our itinerary.  In fact, the next place on our path to Arizona was going to be Malpais National Monument, but of course, it’s closed.

We wanted to do some hiking in the Albuquerque area, but again, most of the hikes are on federal land and are not open.  We did find a trail that is open because, although it’s on Federal land, it’s maintained by the City of Albuquerque, so off we went.

 
The area is called Piedras Marcadas, which in Spanish means “Marked Stones”.  This is an area that contains hundreds of petro glyphs. We walked among the rocks for about 2 miles or so, checking out all the “art”. They have estimated that these petro glyphs have been here since the year 1300 A.D.  It’s amazing that they are still so vibrant.

When we look at them we think in terms of people just drawing pictures because they want to, but in reality, this was a major form of communication before the written word.  This particular area was a major crossroad for ancient tribes.  One picture was of a man with an arrow in his head.  Not sure what that was communicating!

For our last night out together, we headed first to a pizza place. It’s been months since I’ve had pizza and this stuff was really good! 

We wanted a quick meal because our real goal was to get to the Sandia Peak tram in time to see sunset at the top of the mountain.

We made it with a little time to spare.  We didn’t mind cutting it close, because it was so cold at the top, that it was snowing!

 

The snow made for some really interesting sunset shots!

  Finally, the sun was all the way down, and we headed down the mountain.  We found when we got to the top that you can actually hike up and just take the tram down.  Maybe next time!

Sadly, it was time to leave Mike and Julie, but we’ll see them again in January, and I’m sure the time will go by pretty fast!

  We left Albuquerque, heading towards Tucson, and stopped about halfway, in the small town of Deming, NM.  We knew another friend of ours is staying there so we stayed at the same park, and the three of us went out to dinner.

The restaurant Lee suggested is called Adobe Deli, and it’s one of those restaurants with lots of character. It’s out in the middle of the desert, in what used to be a school.
Paul’s ribs showed up on a sword type of thing, stuck in a chunk of wood.

Even the ladies room was interesting- a parking meter is in front of the stall doors, with a sign telling you to deposit 5 cents to use the facilities!









After a great dinner, we took off the next day for Tucson.  Tucson is at a lower elevation, and further south, so its much warmer there.  Unfortunately, at the moment, we only have one working air conditioner.  Our main  AC unit, in the living room, is broken.  It’s the one that has a heater, as well as an air conditioner.  Its not heating or cooling, which is not good.  It’s also not good that it’s 3 months out of warranty.  Seems like an air conditioner should last longer than two years.  Paul has spent a fair amount of time talking with DRV, Dometic, (the manufacturer of the air conditioner) and multiple repair places.  Apparently there’s not much that we can do, other than replace it, but Paul is going to try and see if the issue is a lack of refrigerant, and he’s ordered a tool to be delivered that he’ll use to check it.  Then we’ll see where we go from there.  In the meantime, we have a fan pushing the cold air from the bedroom to the living room, because it was 87 degrees here today!

The last of the Balloons (10-12-13)

Balloon Fiesta is not just a morning event.  There is something to see every evening, as well.   Friday, in the early evening, we visited Teresa at the hospitality area sponsored by her employer.  Once we had a bite to eat and visited for a bit, we moved on to the main field.







Several evenings the Fiesta has “Evening Glows” .  This is where the balloons light up once it’s dark outside, but they remain tethered. 





















We could walk among the balloons and watch them being blown up with the hot air.








  Once the Glow was finished, it was time for “Afterglow”.  Afterglow is the fireworks show that takes place every evening after the balloons are deflated again.

Having gotten up really early the first two days, for the second two days that we were at the Fiesta we decided to “sleep in” until about 6:30 and just drink our coffee outside while watching the balloons fly overhead.  None of us had been sleeping very well since they start parking cars (right next to us) at about 4 AM, with all the noise that goes along with that.

 It didn’t take long for the balloons to be directly overhead:


    































 

One of the pilots stopped briefly to drop off some passengers and pick up some new ones, and several of us held the basket down while the transfer was made.

Then they were off again, with a new set of passengers!















Once again the guys helped the balloonists move the basket to an easier spot to fold up the balloon.














   They both spent a couple of hours helping to deflate balloons and put them away. All in all it was a lot of fun!













Finally on Sunday afternoon the Fiesta came to an end and we moved on to another RV Park.  The following two days were pretty much spent recovering from the lack of sleep! We were all pretty beat, but it was so worth it- we had an awesome time!

Balloon Fiesta, Day 2 (10-10-13)

Day Two- the storm is gone and the wind has left with it.  Once again we are up before dawn, headed over to the launch area.  



This time, the green flag is waving, indicating that all systems are “Go” for launch.







 

We arrived in time to watch the “Dawn Patrol” balloons being inflated.

 
As the sky started to get light, the balloons headed for the sky.

Soon, the sun peaked over the mountain top, and the crowd got quiet as the National Anthem was sung while two balloons carrying our flag climbed above the field.

This was the magical day for me.  As we wandered among the hundreds of balloons, everywhere we turned, more balloons were being released. 

Soon, the skies were strewn with hundreds of them.

    

This was the day for the “special Shape” balloons to fly. Some of them were cool to see because they are familiar.

Others were just colorful and fun to watch.  Not all of them were special shapes- there were plenty of “regular” balloons as well.





















Rather than posting each picture here, and making everyone scroll down for 10 minutes just to see them all, here’s a photo album with some of my favorites!

View Full Album

Once most of the balloons were in the air, we realized that they were flying directly over our trailers, so we went back to watch the show from the comfort of our chairs.

Well, if we thought watching them go up was fun- watching them come down was an absolute blast!










Part of the reason why ballooning is big in Albuquerque is because of a phenomenon called “the box”.  Quite often, the wind at low altitudes blows in one direction, and the wind at higher altitudes blows in the opposite direction, so the balloons fly out, go up in altitude and then fly back to the launch pad. 



Well, on this particular day, the box wasn’t working. 

There was virtually no wind, and we soon noticed that the balloons were landing in the parking lot right behind our trailers! They couldn't make it back to the launch field because of the lack of wind.

It didn’t take Mike and Paul long to realize that the pilots could use some help on the ground (sometimes the chase crew couldn't get to the landing site in time).

 













The guys got into a great rhythm. Once a balloon got close to the ground, the pilot would let the people on the ground know where they would like the basket to land, so that the balloon would have enough space to “fall”.













 

I lost track of how many balloons the guys helped bring down (Julie and I helped too, just not quite as much as the guys), but at one point, they hopped the fence to the baseball diamond to help the pilots who had chosen that spot to come down.

I am sure they were both tired by the end of the day but we had an awesome time.

Balloon Fiesta, Day 1 (10-09-13)

The type of RV spot we picked for the Balloon Fiesta is called a VIP spot.  We have no electric hook up, we’re basically parked in a parking lot(we got a prime end spot), but tickets for the Fiesta are included, we are parked right next to Julie and Mike, and we can walk to all the festivities, and actually see most things right from the trailer!

Our first night in Albuquerque, there were no Fiesta events planned.  We called our friend Teresa, who lives here, and made plans to meet her for dinner.  We met her at one restaurant for drinks, then decided we didn’t like the menu so we walked to Tucanos Brazilian Grill, where the five of us had an awesome dinner.

The flying of hot air balloons is very weather dependent, of course.  Many of the balloons are what they call “special shape” balloons, and they don’t fly them if the wind is over 10 mph. The forecast was not good.

Nevertheless, at 5:30 AM, in the predawn cold, we were walking the 5 minute walk to the launch area to see what was happening. With temperatures in the low 30s, we were all bundled in our winter coats. 

Venders were already up and running, selling both souvenirs and breakfast foods.

“Dawn Patrol” is a small group of balloons that are sent up in the predawn hours, and is the first event each day. On that first day, they didn’t fly-not a good sign.

  The determination was made that the special shape balloons could inflate, so that people could enjoy them, but they wouldn’t be released from their tethers. As the sun came up, the balloons were laid out.

This Fiesta is unique in that you can walk the field as they are inflating the balloons, and really get a close up look at how the work is done.

     

We thoroughly enjoyed walking among all the balloons for a couple of hours, until our feet went numb and we decided we needed to head home to warm up.  By noon time, the wind had picked up to 30 mph, gusting to about 50 mph, and brought with it a lot of dust and some rain.  We all just hunkered down for the rest of the day, since all the events were canceled and we were pretty tired.