Oct 6 -- Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

 

Another early morning, but not as bad as yesterday.  The Dawn Patrol was already heading out and the balloons were all lit up.  One thing I find amazing is the sheer number of balloons they jam into one space!  They are all shoulder to shoulder, bouncing off one another until they manage to get into mid-air.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  We got our balloon unrolled and fired up, and First Responder and Fire Hydrant flew off into the sky.

            

 

         Once they were in the air, we all hopped in the trucks and headed out to chase.  Tod put the balloon down in the big open field right in front of our RV spot, so after we got it all wrapped up again, we just strolled back home and enjoyed watching all the balloons coming down in our front yard.

In the afternoon we went to the cultural center for the 10 pueblos and toured their museum.  A number of different pueblos had dancers there, so we watched the buffalo dance and the deer dance.

         

After the museum, we went into Old Town for a late lunch at La Placita, a restaurant that is the iconic Old Town place to eat.  After enjoying our lunch, we strolled to the plaza, where there were flaminco dancers performing for all the balloon fiesta crowd.

Oct 5 -- Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

We were supposed to get some hands on experience yesterday with some balloons that were to launch from a school nearby, but a fierce wind kept everything grounded, so we were going into this experience cold.  Really.  Cold.  And dark.  We’d been told that we needed to be on the grid for our balloon by 5:30, so we were there.  Our balloon was not.

The only light was from a hopeful vendor selling glow sticks.

 

 

    

About a dozen balloons were starting to get pumped up, even though it was still pretty dark.  They are the dawn patrol, the ones who venture up to really see which way the wind is blowing and how fast the balloons will be moving. 

 

 

  When the flight control people gave the go-ahead, they started flaming the balloons, and eventually, they started lifting off.

It was just starting to get light behind the mountains to the east of the city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the sun came up, it started lighting up the balloons in the sky, even though we were still in shadow.

 

 

Our guys finally arrived and were appalled that we had been out there so long.  We didn’t need to be there until 6:30 at the very earliest.  Hurray!  An extra hour of sleep tomorrow.  They unloaded the van and showed us how to help get the balloons spread out.  Our team is flying what is called “shapes” and they represent the NY fire department with a fireman and a hydrant.  I told them they need a dalmation next. 

 

 

We unrolled 400 pounds of ripstop nylon out of the bag it was wadded up in and tried to get it as flat as we could while the pilot, Tod, and his team started blowing air into it.

 

 

 

First Responder and the Fire Hydrant

The balloons were finally flamed and standing up.  Gerry got to go for a very short ride, hanging on to the edge of the basket as it skittered across the ground, thereby violating one of the rules in our instruction booklets:  Don’t go for a ride outside the basket.  Because the wind was a bit stronger than Tod was happy about, and it was heading east into the city instead of the normal westerly direction, he just put the balloons up and left them tied to the truck so they wouldn’t go anywhere.  He says they are squirrely under the best conditions and downright scary in a brisk wind.

 

 

A lot of the traditional round balloons ventured up into the sky, but the pilots of the special shapes all seemed to agree with Tod, so very few of them left the ground.

 

The variety of balloons is just astounding.

Everywhere you look, there are amazing things to see.

                

 

Seriously, the pictures don’t begin to do the visual experience justice!

Oct 3–Albuquerque

While we were in Santa Fe, we drove up to Los Alamos to see the museums on the atom bomb program there during World War II.  The officials wanted to find a place that was far from a coast with restricted access and fairly moderate weather, so they ended up putting the new facility on top of a mesa in the middle of New Mexico.  It must have been an interesting place to work for the scientists, and a frustrating place to live for their families.

We spent the rest of the time in Santa Fe just wandering through stores and not buying anything, or visiting with the other people in the RV park.  It’s rained a lot in recent weeks, and when it rains in the desert, things bloom that might not normally be blooming this late in the year.

 

We drove the short distance down to Albuquerque yesterday and met up with the other Boomers we are camping with.  This morning, the first of the commercial balloons were up and flying, so I took pictures.  I’m sure they will turn out to be the least interesting of the balloon photos that will be taken the rest of the week. 

               

 

We all went over to the balloon grounds to get our crew training.  This is what the balloon grounds looked like today.  By Saturday it will be a totally different picture.  There are over 600 balloons planned for the next week.    We got our crew assignment and when we looked our pilot up, it turns out that we are going to be working with a balloon that looks like a fireman’s hat called “First Responder.”  I’m eager to get photos of it.

This is going to be a fun adventure!

Sept 29–Santa Fe

 

We stopped overnight at Pagosa Springs on the 26th.  After dinner we went downtown to check it out.  What we found is that Pagosa Springs rolls the sidewalks up at 5 pm on the dot and the only things open were some of the spring spas.  They were VERY proud of themselves.  I don’t like sitting in hot water $30 worth, especially since the springs are mineral and stinky.  So we weren’t inclined to hang around. 

This is one of the springs beside a sidewalk.  Looks like a mini-volcano.

The next night we were in Santa Fe and the past two days we have explored the plaza of the old town, checked out some museums, and enjoyed the shops.

   

   The Governer’s Palace and old town plaza.  This was built by the Spanish in the mid-1500’s and was the seat of government for the Spanish, Mexicans, the Pueblo Indians during a revolution, the USA, for a period of several months the Confederacy, and then the US again.  In the late 1890’s it was finally replaced by a more modern residence.

 

One of the must-see sights is the staircase in the Loretta Chapel.  It has no center post to support it and is supposed to be impossible, engineering-wise, and yet here it is. 

There is art all over the place – there are over 250 galleries, and statues and dynamic sculptures like these whirly-gigs are everywhere.

I thought this was a cool visual with all the arrows and their shadows on the wall.

The Georgia O’Keefe Museum is in Santa Fe.  It was unfortunately being re-hung for a new show, so there weren’t many pictures to see.  This is Black Mesa that Georgia O’Keefe painted many times during her years in New Mexico

 

 

 

  

The Museum of Indian Art and Culture had a musical group and traditional dancers when we stopped there to check it out.  The singers were very modern but the little dancer danced her way across the plaza to their music, an interesting blend of old and new

Sept 26–Pagosa Springs

It was really windy all night last night, so neither of us slept well, thinking about the road out of Ouray.  We had two choices.  We could go back north and take I-50 east and then go south, which would have made today about 250 miles to get half way to Santa Fe, or we could go directly south from Ouray on what they call the “Million Dollar Highway” (named back when a million dollars was actually a lot of money) that goes straight down to Silverton and Durango to Pagosa Springs, which is a 120 mile day, with about a hundred miles tomorrow to Santa Fe.  No contest, right?  Except that it was really, really windy and there is a significant part of the road that is a sheer drop-off for a thousand feet or more.  But the G-Man has nerves of steel, so we took the short, breath-taking road.  I drove the Little Green Toad for the first 30 miles so poor Cleo wouldn’t have to drag it up those 7% grades at 10,000’.  Here’s a picture of Cleo on the road.  This is NOT the part of the road where that drop-off was on the right hand side of the road.  Even though I was in the little car following, I was keeping both hands on the steering wheel and my full attention on the road!

The view from the road after Silverton isn’t as colorful as the north end of the road.  The trees there are just beginning to think about putting on their gold coats.  It’s still a pretty view.

There was one single, solitary patch of color along the downward slope. 

So now we are in Pagosa Springs, contemplating the choice between a steak house and a Mexican restaurant, both recommended by out RV camp host.  Tomorrow is Santa Fe.

Sept 25–Yankee Boy Basin

We headed off on a nice dirt road (that’s one that’s been graded and is wide enough for two cars to pass without one having to pull off in the weeds) that leads up to the Yankee Boy mine basin.  There were some patches of golden aspen, but it seems to be more sheltered and warmer, so there was way too much greenery so I played with camera settings and artsy shots, most of which ended up in the trash.  Have I said how much I love digital cameras?

    Golden road.  Or maybe a half-golden road.

 

Maidenhair fern.  Years ago a friend kept giving me a maidenhair fern plant, which I would promptly kill because it was Loomis and hot.  I finally refused to accept the fate of another plant and have never attempted a fern again.  Obviously, maidenhair ferns are happy at 9,000’ and snuggled among the aspen trunks.

 White trunks and golden leaves blowing in the wind.

There is a large working mine in the heart of the Yankee Boy basin.  As we drove by it we saw a cement mixer, several large front loaders, a couple of long office-type trailers and big dump trucks.  This is part of the road leading to that mine.  I really don’t think it’s physically possible for any of those vehicles to have traveled this road, and yet there they are and no other way to get there that we can see!

 

 

 

Here’s a shot of the hot springs, where we are going to go get our final Ouray soaking in another hour or so.

Sept 24–The Yankee Girl

It was still muddy but what the heck.  We have 4 wheel drive!  So we decided to go up the definitely unimproved county road that leads to the Yankee Girl mine. 
This is the town of Ouray from the road above the town heading south.  Unlike some of the mountain towns like Telluride, this is a real community and it’s a nice, comfortable place to hang out and not worry that you don’t have enough Gucci or Prada to be allowed in the city limits.

The yellows were even more intense, especially since there wasn’t a cloud to be seen anywhere to cast a shadow.        
I am grateful to the person who invented digital cameras.  I took a LOT of photos of aspen leaves, and everyone can be thankful that I high-graded out a lot of those, and then pruned the photos for the blog down even more!  I’m having great fun with leaves!


We slogged our way up to the Yankee Girl mine.  This structure was used to haul the ore up from the shafts below.

What a beautiful place and then the miners had to work in a hole in the ground!





I think this is one of the best shots of the day.






















This was the view from up really high!







The snow had melted partially, so the mountain was even more Red, White and Blue today.