10-18-2019 The Acoma Pueblo, Last Days of the Balloon Festival, and a 4 day run home

October 10 Thursday

Keep in mind that in addition to all the extras we enjoyed at the Fiesta, every single morning we were enthralled anew with the excitement of the Dawn Patrol, the early morning glow, and the balloons rising gently as the sun rose over the Sandia Mountains.

Thursday was an especially beautiful day, with the “Special Shapes Rodeo” event.  We were on the field by 6am, along with 90,000 or so other people, on a morning that wasn’t quite as cold as predicted, but still chilly.

The morning air is absolutely electric with all the excitement, and we enjoyed hot chocolate and some yummy donuts while waiting for the show to begin. No need to go overboard with those huge breakfast burritos again.

Wandering around the field as the balloons begin to fill is fascinating.We loved watching them up close, hearing the whoosh of the burners, and the excitement of the pilots as they prepare to fly.  Sadly, this was the second morning of our visit that the weather didn’t cooperate and there was too much wind for the balloons to lift.  Still, they were filled and standing in the field, blowing around and sometimes even “kissing”.  It was a great experience and we didn’t mind that the balloons didn’t take off so we could enjoy them up close.

We returned to the tent in time for a hot breakfast with plenty of time to board the Red Bus at 11 AM for the trip west to the famous El Pinto Restaurant and the Acoma Pueblo.

The grounds of El Pinto are beautiful. What was once a working ranch is now a huge restaurant capable of seating several hundred people at once.  We had a buffet lunch with lots of choices. There were some rellenos and enchiladas that make my mouth water as I remember those flavors of New Mexico.

We spent time relaxing in the  shady patio after lunch before we once again boarded the bus for the 90 minute ride west along I-40 toward the Acoma Pueblo.  There are many pueblos in the Albuquerque area; some quite lovely, some a bit touristy, and some completely inaccessible except on feast days. 

The Acoma Pueblo is off the beaten track several miles south of the highway surrounded by colorful canyons and mesas.  The Pueblo is actually located high on a mesa although the village where most people actually live is on the flatland at the base of the historic pueblo.

We stopped at the visitor center and boarded a shuttle that took us up the hill for a tour of the Pueblo.  It was almost completely empty except for a few Indians (don’t forget New Mexico Native Americans like to be called Indians) peddling their arts.  The pottery was gorgeous with beautiful detailed designs filled with meanings about the earth, the rain, and the clouds.  Not being a collector with buckets of money, I opted for a very small flat pot made by an artist who talked about living down below in “town” but coming up to his studio to work.  He liked the quietness of the place with no electricity or running water.

We were surprised to see cars tucked into small spots on the crooked dirt roads and a few TV antennas poking up from the adobe walls.  In spite of the incongruity of some of the modern day intrusions, the pueblo felt quiet and beautifully ancient. 

Once back at the visitor center, I perused the maps of the routes of the people who native historians say came from Chaco to settle at Acoma.  Once again, the thought that the Anasazi disappeared was discounted as a construct of the white man historians.  The Pueblo people call them their ancestors and claim that they are directly descended from the Anasazi.

Of all the sights that we enjoyed near Albuquerque, I think this was my favorite because it was out in the middle of nowhere and so very quiet.

October 11 Friday

We had another quiet morning accompanied by the balloons rising over the MoHo.  We had arranged to meet with Mary Ann and Gail in the afternoon for a visit and a meal.  When Mary Ann asked what we might be interesting in doing I said without hesitation, “Something without people!”  We met at their lovely home and they took us on a drive up the Turquoise Trail to the back side of the summit of the mountain we had visited before by tram.  What a gorgeous drive!

They then took us to a back road on the east side of the mountains,where we found a sweet little walking trail that gave us beautiful skies, silence, and the fragrance of a pinyon and ponderosa forest.  After waiting patiently in the MoHo for many days while we left with our group, Mattie loved being out walking as much as we did.

Dinner was at their home with a delicious curried vegetable soup and bread.  They gifted us with a lovely good luck chili ristra and sent us on our way early enough to beat the night traffic to the balloon field. We so enjoyed the quiet time and the wonderful break from the busy-ness of our time with Adventure Caravans.

October 12 and 13, Saturday and Sunday

The last day of the Fiesta passed in a blur without much to mark it as any different as the previous days.  We saw the dawn glow, the Mass Ascension, had breakfast in the tent, and spent the rest of the day cleaning and packing the MoHo preparing for our exit from the field the following morning.

We enjoyed the farewell dinner in the tent with our fellow travelers, exchanged photos and addresses with Laura and Elsie, and said goodbye to other folks we had met during the ten days at the Fiesta.

We knew that we had to be off the field by 10 AM and had no reservations or plans for where we might spend the night on Sunday.  We decided to return to the beautiful Sandia Resort and Casino and take advantage of the open free parking in the huge lot overlooking the Rio Grande Valley. 

I wanted very much to return to the incredibly good buffet that we had enjoyed there during the previous week.  A quiet day, a delicious afternoon supper, and a short time with the slots was just enough.  Watching the full moon rise that night over the mountains was spectacular.  By Monday morning we were ready to roll in earnest.

We headed north toward Farmington knowing we could easily camp at the Homestead RV Park even without a reservation.  We had visited Chaco Culture in 2014 and knew that the road west included 21 miles of rough dirt road to reach the park.  Still, knowing we probably wouldn’t return to New Mexico any time soon, we decided to park the MoHo at the highway and venture west in the Tracker.

There is no easy description of that road that covers the intensity of the washboards and the ruts.  Somewhere way out there, a crazy racket emanated from the underpinnings of the Tracker and we thought maybe we might be stranded.  After a bit it subsided, never to go completely away.  The brakes were doing goofy things but lucky for us, they held up until we got back to Grants Pass.

Chaco was as wonderful as we remembered and while we didn’t hike the same paths we enjoyed the visitor center and drove the scenic loop route among the ruins.  It was good to be there again even though it was only for a short afternoon.

Our night at Homestead was uneventful and our goal the next day was to reach Capitol Reef National Park and possibly boondock just west of Fruita where we had seen a group of people boondocked on our way south two weeks previously. 

We took our time along Highway 95, enthralled with the canyons, the river, the cliffs, and stopped for a short visit to Natural Bridges National Monument just off Highway 95.  We drove the loop, admired the arches from above, and I remembered my hikes into the depths of those canyons many years before.  The trails were icy and the air was cold so I didn’t mind skipping the hikes that we didn’t have time to do.

Our goal was to get home as quickly as possible since the snows were threatening to close the roads on our route over the Sierra Nevada mountains north of Reno.  As we approached the eastern boundary of Capitol Reef, I saw several rigs parked at the Fremont River Crossing that leads to Cathedral Valley.  It only took a minute for us to decide to try to boondock there and sure enough there was plenty of room for us in spite of the half dozen or so rigs scattered about near the crossing.

Once again the night was gorgeous with clear skies, a beautiful moon and intense quiet.  The next morning we left early and followed the same route west that we had taken on our way to Albuquerque, traveling through Utah and Nevada on highway 50, camping again at the Border RV Park.  On our return route, we knew that we didn’t have to settle for WalMart in Fallon, Nevada and chose to park at the Texaco in Fallon. 

What we didn’t know until I went into the store to be sure it was ok to park was that the station belonged to the local tribes,and if we hadn’t checked in the tribal police would have made us move.  There were only a couple of other rigs in the lot that came and went during the night and I was grateful I didn’t have to worry about being bothered by someone banging on our door.

The next morning we checked the weather, saw that the snow was holding off for another few hours, and made a fast beeline for Susanville. We crossed the mountains on Highway 44 and Highway 89 and then we headed north on I-5 near Mt Shasta.  We arrived home just a few hours before the snows came to the mountains behind us. 

Whew.  Even as I review the photos, after three weeks out and ten days having a wonderful time in Albuquerque, the 4 day trip home is still a bit of a blur in my mind.  Anyone who has read this blog for long will no doubt recognize that horse running to the barn way we have of going home after a trip.  It was a truly wonderful trip, a great experience, and we were so very happy to be home again and settle in for the fall.

 

10-08-2019 A Week in New Mexico During the Balloon Festival Part 1

I am writing this blog about the rest of our week in Albuquerque a bit late, on a quiet Thanksgiving morning at Sunset House in Grants Pass.  It has been more than six weeks since we returned from New Mexico, and writing from photos and notes leaves a bit to be desired.  This post is a labor of love, with maybe a bit more labor than love, as I attempt to recreate the whirlwind of activities that filled the rest of our week in New Mexico.

Adventure Caravans made sure that we didn’t have any complaints about too much down time.  Each day was booked solid with interesting activities, some more than others.  As I look back, and read my notes, reviewing the photos to jog my memory, I can see why I have avoided writing this post.  So much and so fast, and crunched into a very few days is a lot to put together. 

I know better, I know that cryptic notes don’t do the job and I need to actually write the blog as things are happening.  I wouldn’t exactly call this current post a “place holder”, but essentially it is a journal for me to keep things in order, to remember what we did in that busy week after our first breathtaking Balloon Fiesta initiation.

We rose at dawn each morning to watch the dawn patrol, the breathtaking mass ascensions, and see the balloons light up with the rising sun over the Sandia Mountains.  A bit of breakfast in the tent, and by 9 or 10, as the balloons returned to the field and the skies emptied, we were on our red bus heading somewhere.  With 150 people to keep entertained, Adventure Caravans had their work cut out.  There were three busses, and we had the same bus each day.  If there is anything I would say about this trip that wasn’t my favorite part, it was the number of people in the group.  It was just much too big for us.  I get it, there is no way that a small group would work in this situation, and I have to give the company great credit for managing all of us as well as they did.

On Monday morning, the 7th, we woke up feeling a bit worn from all the weekend excitement.  The sewage pump truck arrived early and with little fanfare sucked out all the contents of our tanks.  We appreciated the convenience of having two free pump-outs during our time at the fiesta, especially since it is nearly impossible to leave the camping area in a rig to go find a dump during the ten days of the show. 

By 9 we had finished our breakfast at home and lined up for our first bus excursion.  Sometimes when we are traveling with a group, I am having to deal with trying to get a forward seat due to my tendency to get carsick.  When we filled out our forms for Adventure Caravans, they had a space for “motion sickness” which I checked.  Instead of having to wait in line and fight for a forward seat, those of us who had the problem were given special passes and had the same seats throughout the rally.  Such an amazing and simple thing and I appreciated it so very much.

We rode just a few miles toward the center of Albuquerque to visit the Turquoise Museum.  The Turquoise Castle was built as a private residence by an eccentric and very wealthy Albuquerque businesswoman in 2008.  It was purchase by the family and officially opened as the Turquoise Museum in 2019.  The word “family” in the previous sentence has a link, because tracking the history of the Zachary and Lowry extended families including 5 generations who founded the museum is complicated. Prior to the move to the “castle”, the museum was in much smaller venue. Currently there is more than 8,000 square feet of museum space filled to bursting with some of the world’s rarest and most collectible pieces of turquoise and turquoise jewelry.

The educational exhibits include information about the mining, science and grading of turquoise, in addition to lapidary techniques, turquoise imitations and the purported mystical qualities of the stone.  One bit of information that stood out is the fact that only “natural turquoise” is real.  Real turquoise can be anything at all.  It is easy to be duped into buying something that isn’t natural even if it is called “real”.

The castle itself was fascinating, done in the European style of a great castle, filled with antiques, stained glass windows, a gorgeous spiral staircase, and 127 crystal chandeliers.  Hard to imagine that such opulence was only built in 2008!

As we left the main showrooms of the museum, we were funneled into a very tiny commercial area with turquoise for sale.  It was really a disservice to the museum people and to us because we had only a few minutes to get back to the bus and no time at all to peruse the fabulous turquoise items that were displayed.  The museum is near downtown and is definitely worth much more time than we were given.

Feeling a bit sad about our truncated visit to the museum, we once again boarded the red bus for the short trip to Old Town. Like many historic towns in New Mexico, Old Town Albuquerque is built around a plaza.  There are restaurants and shops, and a bandstand in the center of the square. 

Mo and I visited Old Town on our first MoHo cross country trip in 2007, and had delightful memories of a Christmas time supper at the charming Church Street Cafe, located in a house that was built during the founding of Albuquerque sometime after 1706. This would make Casa de Ruiz the oldest residence in Albuquerque and one of the oldest structures in the state of New Mexico.

We thought that going to the café first while the bus loads of tourists wandered around the square would ensure a quick lunch and we could explore afterward.  We were seated almost immediately, and our charming waiter encouraged us to order immediately, before the crowds arrived.  We did so, enjoyed our drinks, and waited, and waited, and waited.  The charming waiter was running around like crazy, and when I finally asked what happened to our meal, he was a bit short, saying, “I will deliver it when I get it!”.  A few minutes later, he humbly offered us a free cocktail, since he realized he had forgotten to place our order. 

We kept our sense of humor, especially after the amazing meal arrived, including “traditional” chile rellenos for me, accompanied by the lightest empanadas I ever tasted. By the time we left the restaurant, the crowds were huge and the wait lines were very long.

After lunch we listened to the mariachi music in the plaza for a time before wandering around the block enjoying the window displays.  This photo feels much like how I felt in Old Town, overloaded with touristy displays and too many people.  Unlike the Turquoise Museum where we felt entirely too rushed, we felt as though there was too much free time in Old Town and no place that we cared to explore among all the shops and tourists. 

Once again the group piled into the buses and we were taken just a short way north of town to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.  There was a store, some interesting exhibits, and some dancing, but nothing that I would consider spectacular.

The dancing wasn’t specific to the Pueblo tribes, which seemed a bit strange to me.  Some of the art was beautiful, and I especially enjoyed the play of light and shadow on this mural on one of the exterior walls.

At the end of the performance, they encouraged everyone to join in the Friendship Dance, another somewhat generic dance that we see often at Native American gatherings, not specific to the Pueblo tribes. Our new friends Elsie and Laura enjoyed the dancing. Elsie and Laura are friends from Southern California who often travel together.  They were parked just a couple of spots from us at the camping area and we enjoyed their company during the rally.

October 8 Sandia Peak

We woke to cloudy skies in the west and predictions of rain for later in the day.  Thankfully the predictions were wrong, and the rains never interfered with our trip to the top of Sandia Peak via the Sandia Tramway.

We were glad to be with a tour group when we arrived at 9am on Tuesday morning.  It was a popular destination that morning during the Balloon Festival and the lines were hours long.  People were waiting three hours for tickets, and as we stood in our line to board, we heard that all tickets for the day had been sold out. Instead of the long wait, within an hour we were in a cable car heading to the top of the mountain, from 6500 feet to more than 10,000 feet in elevation in just 15 spectacular minutes.

We spent quite a bit of time trying to pick out the Fiesta grounds far to the west.  None of the binoculars scattered around the platforms were pointed in the direction we needed.

The ride to the top is gorgeous.  We were lucky that the predicted rain never came. We didn’t have a lot of time at the summit, and the only restaurant was extremely busy with a long wait.  It was much more fun to wander around and look at the gorgeous views. 

With beautiful trails extending in all directions from the peak, it looked like a wonderful place for fall hiking, but the short visit limited any hiking and we only managed to walk around a bit before we had to leave. We were warned to be sure to get on the right tram going back down because if we weren’t there when the bus left, we were on our own.  I think we had about 45 minutes at the top before going back down.

I did think that perhaps I could manage to write about our entire Albuquerque week in one blog post, but that was much too optimistic.  Up next, The Turquoise Trail to Santa Fe, visiting the Acoma Pueblo, and meeting with good friends who live in Albuquerque.

I will leave you with a shot of the beautiful night “glow”, where all the the balloons are filled and raised and lit up in time with the music blaring from huge speakers.  The video is on SmugMug, but I actually have no clue how to embed it properly here.

10-06-2019 The Perfect Box

Current Location: Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta RV Camp 84 degrees F and clear

This might end up being what friend Erin used to call a “teaser”, a blog post to basically catch up on where we are at the moment when there isn’t time to write about how we got here.  As I continue to write, I think this is a bit more than a “teaser”, but if you want to know what I mean by the perfect “box”, read to the end. 

There are just a bit more than 1400 miles between home and Balloon Fiesta Park here in Albuquerque, and the days we spent on the route are well deserving of some blog writing.  Instead, I have tracked my daily notes in Google’s Keep app for future use, uploaded photos from the phone without any processing and held off a bit on managing and processing the camera photos.  After all, days in the wide open and gorgeous Nevada desert and around red rock country in Capitol Reef deserve more than a phone photo.

Although I do have to admit that the Galaxy S9+ does a surprisingly good job at catching the good stuff unaided. For now, however, I will skip the stories of our journey and jump right into the amazing story of this very day.

The Albuquerque Balloon Festival has been one of those places that has meandered around in the back of my mind for years.  I always wanted to see it, but could never quite figure out the logistics of how to actually manage a visit to such a popular and very crowded destination in the MoHo.  We have friends who live here in ABQ and they don’t even go to the festival, crowds too big and traffic completely unmanageable for many locals.  Doesn’t seem to stop the nearly 1 million people who visit this site over the 9 day course of the festival, but it was definitely daunting for us to think about.

Our other friends, John and Carol Herr, who did a lot of blogging in the past, but less so recently, also waxed eloquent on the magnificence of the Balloon Fiesta.  They are true veterans, having visited many times, boondocking in their motorhome, and have learned to manage many of the complexities of camping here.  We listened to their stories, laughed with them and talked about it, and then thought….no way. 

Still, the daydream persisted, and one day last fall Mo said to me, “How would you like to go to the Balloon Fiesta”.  She had read about the trip put on by Adventure Caravans and decided it would be a great way to see the festival without the headaches.  We had thoroughly enjoyed our Rose Parade Rally 2017 experience with Adventure Caravans, so had a general idea what to expect we would get for our investment.

This rally is a bit different, however.  Instead of 25 rigs and 60 or so people and a nice park with hookups, there are 80 rigs and 171 people.  In the desert, in a big dirt parking lot. There is no other way to actually park onsite at the balloon festival, except for a very few elite sites that have hookups that are ridiculously expensive.  Most people sprawled out on the big dirt fields are boondocking.

No so with Adventure Caravans. Several days before we arrived, the staff arrived and set up the huge, climate controlled big tent, giant quiet generators that provide 30 amp power, and great clean water with good pressure.  During the course of our stay we will also get two pump-outs of our tanks, and on days when the balloons aren’t doing much exciting, we will be treated to visits to Old Town Albuquerque, Sandia Mountain Tram, Santa Fe, the Turquoise Museum, and the Pueblo Cultural Center, among other sites.

We are also treated to a 5 am continental breakfast and then hot breakfast at 7:30 to nine for all the folks that headed for the launch field at 5am for Dawn patrol.  We will get a total of 18 meals, entrances to the launch field, and lots of other little side goodies.  We thought it sounded like a great idea, and so far, after the first three days here, we haven’t been disappointed.

The Fiesta grounds are huge.  Not just football field huge, but dozens of football fields huge.  It is almost 2 miles from where we are camped to the launch field, and no way to drive a car in the insane traffic.  Instead Adventure Caravans has golf carts to get us to the shuttle bus near the gate.  The fiesta shuttle busses come through the RV parking areas every 15 minutes during most of the day, and evening but are sometimes full when they get to our area. Of course, we could walk, but that is a LONG walk in dusty crowded conditions, and once inside the launch field grounds, the crowds are so intense that walking is slowed to that bone numbing crawl that will wear you down faster than any mountain hike.

I can’t count the number of times that someone has said to me, “Oh, I don’t like crowds” and so won’t do such and such.  Well, I can’t think of anyone I know who has said, “Oh, I love crowds!”  LOL  We don’t like crowds either, but as in some magnificent European and US locations, sometimes you just have to bite the bullet to experience something amazing.

We arrived a day before the actual rally start date, and two days before the official festival date to try to beat some of the crowds and confusion that happens as it gets closer to opening day.  On Thursday afternoon, many of the rally campsites were already filled and most of the participants had arrived. Once settled into our spot, hookups were simple and efficient, as is the use of space.  We had room for our slide, and if needed we could have put out our awning, but with the sun on the far side of the rig we didn’t need to do so. The spaces are lined out in chalk throughout the RV camping area, not just for us, but for everyone.  There isn’t much space between sites anywhere. 

On that first evening last Thursday, we simply settled in and took some time to recuperate from our days on the road.  Friday morning after waiting for morning traffic to clear on the freeways, we piled into the baby car and headed south and east across the city to Kirtland AFB and the commissary and exchange to stock up on some supplies. We were lucky that morning with the cloudy skies so Mattie could wait in the car while we did our errands.

Errands included lunch at a local fast food eatery that I hesitate to include in the fast food category.  We had a coupon for a free meal included with the purchase of one meal and for under ten bucks we had two incredibly tasty Mexican Plates and a Dos Equis amber beer to wash it down.  The food was fresh made New Mexican, with red and green sauce, and a salsa bar that was varied and perfectly delicious.  The flour tortillas were fresh, hot and handmade.  Fast food?  Wow, I would love to have fast Mexican food like this in my town.  Taco Cabana has several locations in Albuquerque, and if they are anywhere else out west you can bet we will look for them.

Back in the car just in time for a huge downpour, we drove home through the rapidly flooding streets of Albuquerque.  The night before I had put out the rug, but put the chairs under the rig to protect them from the predicted rain.  When we got home, we found that a river of muddy water had run  under our rig, depositing inches of sticky mud on the rug, flood debris on the entry mat, and silty guck on our chairs.  Ugh.  After a day or so of sunshine, it all dried out and Mo managed to sweep most of it away.

It rained hard all night, and the next morning we woke to mostly clear skies.  Everyone was excited for opening day of the festival, and for awhile the flag was green for flying the balloons.  Mo and I had opted to save our entry tickets for the evening, so took our chairs to the edge of the field with many of our co-campers to watch the morning Mass Ascension. 

Instead, we were treated to a stubborn bank of fog and watched only a few balloons ascend into the mist and disappear before the green flag was turned to orange.  The announcement came a bit later, no balloons launched on opening day of the festival.  Not to worry, there were still many days ahead with good predictions for launch.

We spent a nice day walking the Mattie, and then turned on the air for her in the MoHo and started walking to the Balloon Fiesta Museum, on the edge of the launch field but outside the fee area. It costs ten dollars each time you enter the field, and we were provided four tickets by Adventure Caravans with the option for four more if we needed them. We met two nice women from Southern California the day before and met them along the way.  They said, No No, take your car!  There is no traffic right now and plenty of room to park. 

Good idea!  Back to get the car, we drove to the museum to spend almost two hours wandering around looking at the history of ballooning and of the Fiesta.  I learned much I didn’t know about ballooning in general, from the comparison of hot air versus gas balloons, to how the gondola baskets are still all hand woven with wicker.  The envelope, the big colorful thing that holds the hot air or gas, is made of many kinds of materials, but now is usually nylon and the area close to the burners is a fire resistant material called Nomex.

We got back to the rig in time to feed Mattie and then catch a shuttle bus to the launch field for the evening festivities.  The shuttles are local school busses from the city of Albuquerque and are paid for by the Fiesta.  In no time we were deposited at the launch field entrance and immersed into a crowd of humanity only rivaled in my experience by Disneyland or the California State Fair.

At first we had no clue where to go, and simply wandered toward what is called Main Street, a mile long strip of vendors with all the typical fair stuff, including souvenirs and any kind of fair food you could possibly imagine, including the hamburger on a donut, and for me the best of all, a foot long corn dog.  I love corn dogs, a silly thing, but I marked that location in my mind and sure enough, when the fireworks were beginning, I found the corn dog stand.  If you have ever had the delight of perfectly crispy corn bread with a warm perfect center wrapped around a perfectly flavored hot dog, with mustard, you will know what I mean.  If I were vegetarian, corn dogs would make me fall off the wagon for sure.

About half way down the row of tents, we gave up and opted to wander out into the crowds settling down on the very soft thick green grass of the field.  Every possible version of human was out there laughing, talking, taking selfies and photos, lounging on blankets, chairs, blow up thingies that looked like chair balloons, and just standing around waiting.  We had no clue where to be, so we just plopped down on the grass.  Never mind the getting up part, we would manage.

Before long the energy began to shift, and pickups pulling trailers squeezed their way between the people, nudging them out of the way and then opening up their trailers to bring out the basket gondolas, and laying out the envelopes on the grass.  The sea of humanity was simply moved aside for the raising of the balloons.

The process was amazing to watch, with the timing of filling the balloon first with cold air, then lifting it and moving it as it grew, to the moments when the hot propane was shot into the balloon to make it rise.  At the last moment, the pilot has to be ready for the basket to turn upright as he jumps in to manage the balloon while the crew manages the ropes that keep it from taking flight.

All around us the balloons began to fill, with the sound of hot propane shooting into the envelope, and laughter and excitement as more and more balloons began to rise.  They were so close that many were touching, and we wondered how they kept from running into each other.

As sunset approached, the bursts of hot gas lit up the balloons against the sky, with the most amazing blaze of color I have ever experienced. All of a sudden, all the balloons shot flames at the same time, and the synchronized show of light and color began.  All around us there was light and color and shape, and the sound of the flames and the hot gas as the balloons shifted in the breeze and lit up the sky.  This event was called the Twilight Glow.

The balloons don’t fly at night, but with all of them standing in the field and the synchronized blasts of light and color, flying seemed irrelevant.  As the night progressed, the Team Fastrack Skydivers were scheduled to drop.  We walked back toward the tents and stood near the local tv station broadcasting the show live, which was great because we could see inside the airplane carrying the sky divers on the big screen before they jumped from the plane.  High above us, four divers jumped from the plane, first as little red dots of light, and then comet trails of white until suddenly they began shooting amazing fireworks from their packs as they descended to the launch field.  It was a rather amazing and somewhat shocking sight!

Finally the fireworks began, and we watched a bit before beginning the long trek back to the shuttle location.  We turned and watched when the finale came after 15 minutes or so, and saw fireworks lighting up the sky from several directions around the launch field.  I didn’t try to take any photos, since there were so many people, and yes, my legs were burning from the slow walks in slow crowds and of course, there is NO place to sit and rest your body anywhere in this huge crowd.

Arriving at the shuttle site, we found ourselves at the beginning of a very long line of people waiting and had to wander back a long way to get to the end.  A shocking moment as I passed inches within a very familiar face and suddenly John Herr and I recognized each other at the same moment.  Our blogging friends John and Carol were right there in line with their daughter.  We knew they were at the festival, but with all the activities hadn’t made any arrangements to meet officially, saving that for after the festival perhaps.  We hugged and laughed and had some great talks on our way back to the campgrounds. John and Carol are camped with a different RV group, and are not working the festival this time, although they are tail gunners for Fantasy RV Tours, a rival company to Adventure Caravans.

In spite of the lack of balloon launches, it was a gorgeous and exciting day and we were both bone tired when we fell into bed.

This morning, in order to make it to the launch field for Dawn Patrol, Morning Glow, and Mass Ascension, we would have had to catch a park shuttle at 5 am to the field.  It is great to be on the field when the balloons launch, but we decided to save that experience for a later day in the week.  I was feeling poorly, with an upset stomach and the residual effects of a cold I have been fighting for a couple of weeks. On this morning we slept in until 5:30, and with fresh hot coffee in our cups we set our chairs out in the road right in front of our rig to watch the morning festivities.

The folks at Adventure Caravans had told us that we would discover that watching the balloons from where we are located in the campground is often as good as being on the field.  They were right.  As the dawn began to brighten, we saw the Dawn Patrol balloons rising in the growing light, and then the morning glow was partially visible as the balloons began to light up the field. The Dawn Patrol consists of 12 balloons which launch first to determine the conditions for the main balloon flights.

Soon word came that the flag was changed from yellow to green and it was going to be a fly day!  The balloons began to rise in the early light, more and more as the minutes passed.  It was mesmerizing.  When the sun at last peaked over the Sandia Mountains and lit up the brilliant colors of the balloons against the sky it just got better and better.  Some of the balloons flew right over our campsite, others landing a bit early in the big field across from us, others continuing south on the wind before returning.

Now, about that “box”.  The winds in Albuquerque sometimes do a perfect thing for ballooning.  The winds close to the surface will blow south, but just 200 feet up, they can be blowing north at the same time.  The balloonists fly south on the low winds, and when they are ready to turn, they fill their balloons with big bursts of hot air to rise quickly to the winds blowing in the opposite direction.  So it is a pattern of flying south low in the sky, rising up vertically, then flying north up high in the sky, and sometimes flying back down very close to the original launch position.  That is “the box”, and today Albuquerque provided a perfect box for the festival, and we were lucky enough to be right here for the beautiful flights.

We have much more happening as the week progresses, but if nothing else happened, our balloon glow last night and Mass Ascension today are no doubt the highlight of our Balloon Fiesta experience.