Saturday morning we headed from Grants to Albuquerque, NM. Walked around Old Town in Albuquerque in and out of shops and stopped in the square to listen to two fellows playing a Marimba-they were very good. When they were finished a Mariachi band played-it was alot of fun. Got our tickets for Balloon Fiesta and took a ride to the lot where we will get a bus to the Fiesta-we heard the traffic is horrible and the organizers of the fiesta encourage the park and ride to cut down on traffic into the Balloon Fiesta Park. Tried to get to sleep early as we are getting the bus at 4:30 am. Took the bus into the park and walked around checking out all the arts, crafts, business and food vendors....we had over 2 hours until the balloons would start going up. When the sun started to rise so did the balloons. Hundreds of them. It didn't get old either, every time one would get upright or take off the crowd would cheer. We saw balloons of all colors, shapes and sizes... bumblebees, pepsi can, a beer mug, and Pepe LaPeu to name a few. It was a beautiful sight. After the last balloon had taken off and disappeared into the north we headed for Santa Fe. Explored Santa Fe in the afternoon and drove about 2 hours to Santa Rosa-we are pretty pooped from the early morning so here we are for the night. The next few days will be driving, driving, driving.
This was the 1st balloon to take off-all the others started to fill after this one was up.
The skies started to fill.
Isn't it cute?
Fill-er-up. They start cold filling with a fan-then turn on the burners to finish filling them and stand them up.
Pretty aren't they?
Say Pepsi please!
Anyone for a cold one?
The guy in the striped shirt is a zebra-they tell the drivers when they can launch.
Pretty awesome sight-what a colorful sky!
When the sun came up-the temperatures warmed and the wind picked up, so many of the balloons that were filled didn't get to take off-the bees were grounded.
No, we're not back in Kansas, the terrain definitely changed at the end of day-we are out of the mountains of New Mexico.
Years ago Goshen had a balloon festival although it was on much smaller scale; if they had 40 it was a big year. They used to come right over our house at tree top height if the wind was right. One time they threw candy down to us. We had almost as much fun watching the chase cars go up and down the road trying to follow them. The radio was saying something about snow up in Montana today --- timing is everything.
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