Day 158

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

Oct 11, 2013, 7:48 PM

Well we are just leaving the balloon fiesta and it was an absolutely fabulous, wonderfully exciting and enchanting afternoon and evening. We didn't have a super start to our day though. We stopped at the Sky City Casino RV Park  last night for two days, and it was pretty darn full last night. This morning at the UNGODLY hour of 6:30, in the flipping AM I might add, there were these inconsiderate idiots, and let me tell you what I am giving you the PG version here, that were standing outside talking so loudly that we could hear every word. This went on for a good twenty minutes or more too, Steve even went to get the car keys and chirped the car alarm. They actually laughed about the fact that someone probably wanted them to shut up, YA THINK!!!!! I mean come on, does a brick wall have to fall on your head to get through. I thought he should lay on the air horns of the RV or get the air horn that we have and sneak up behind them and blow it, scare the living hell right out of them, but then of course other people would have suffered, so we didn't. I just seethed!

We slept in a bit (or tried to) cause the balloons go up in the morning at 7AM. We are over an hour away from the event I thought there was also an evening assention, I was wrong. At least not tonight, tonight they were having a "Glowdeo", like rodeo except starting with glow. They don't go up in the air but they fill the balloons, then make the fire burn brighter and make the balloons glow. I think it might have been better than seeing them all take off and fly. Spanky got a pin although there really were no Spanky photo ops. We had no idea where anything was happening in Albuquerque, just that the balloon fiesta was in Albuquerque. So we set the GPS to the city and then set out to find the balloons. We found the Hot Air Balloon Museum and that was where the action was. Behind the museum was a huge field, probably five football fields long and several wide. There were vendors set up and a mariachi band playing, picnic tables, human size hamster balls, mini zip lines, food and more. People came with blankets and chairs, there were so many people there. We walked around a bit and we were worried that they were going to cancel the night's festivities because the wind was still blowing pretty darn hard. We saw a couple sitting at a table and asked if we could sit with them for a little bit. Well they turned out to be the nicest people. They have friends living in The Villages, they are from Ohio, they were just so much fun to sit and talk to. Then don't you know the gondolas started to be unloaded from the trucks, we heard the flames start and balloons started going up left and right. We watched for a while from the table then said good bye to new friends and started to walk around. It was so cool to see how the balloons were inflated, there were people hanging onto the gondolas trying to hold them down I would imagine, there were guys holding on to guide lines, they were filling them up and then lighting them up. We were able to walk all over around and among where the balloons were and there were so many in the end. It was a sea of crazy characters. It was just magical. So Steve and I are now on our way back to the RV. It was getting so darn cold and we did so much walking and tomorrow we are on the move again. This should be a hoot, we are going to Roswell, New Mexico. So if you don't hear from us again, we were probably taken to the mothership and now we are off exploring "space the final frontier, these are the voyages of the RV ship Baker, it's six month mission to explore new worlds and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man and his crazy wife has gone before" (you fill in the Star Trek music here). Good night guys!