Albuquerque, NM

Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta - a must see once in your life!  What a display of color and the coordination it takes to get hundreds of balloons off the ground (pretty quickly) without running into each other.  It was truly an amazing show.  Saturday night was too windy for lift-off but they dazzled us with a "glow show".  Sunday morning the conditions were just right (cold and calm) for a pre-dawn glow followed by 2 hours of back-to-back lift-off of hundreds of balloons!

the "Zebras" who make lift-off happen

We enjoyed this display with my brother, Michael, and the family - Meghan, Taite and Jax.  The boys especially loved the fun balloons like Smoky The Bear, Spider Pig, Darth Vader, a cow, a pig, a butterfly, etc.

me and my little brother

Taite

Meghan, Jax and Becky

Michael and Jax

Meghan and Becky trying to stay warm!

Michael, Meghan, Taite and Jax

Jax and Uncle Tom

We enjoyed a special sleep-over with Taite who decided he was leaving his parents behind (at the hotel) and coming to stay with us for the night.  Thanks again, Taite!  It was a fun time!

I'm not a huge Facebook person but thankful I happened to browse it on Sunday to find out RV friends of ours were at the Balloon Fiesta as well!  We quickly touched base and met for dinner.  We haven't seen them since April, 2012 so it was a really nice surprise to have this chance meeting.  Great time, Tony & Marilyn!

Tony and Marilyn

When we were hiking Wheeler Peak we ran into two ladies on the trail who suggested we try their restaurant in Albuquerque.  So we stopped in to say hello and then also met for breakfast one morning.  Great getting to know you, Kathy and Deb.  Best wishes with everything and definitely keep your plans of RV'ing one day!  Keep in touch and happy hiking!

Deb - at Tomato Cafe, which she has owned for 20 years - great place, Deb!

Kathy and Deb

We found a place still roasting chiles so we decided to give it a try again.  This time we selected MILD (we are wimps)!  One bushel - roasted, peeled and bagged - 8 zip lock bags.  Yummy!

after being roasted you leave them in a garbage bag for a few hours to continue steaming, then peel, bag and freeze

peeled chiles ready to be bagged

So now the dilemma of where to go (we must decide this morning!).  We are scheduled to go to White's City, NM to go to Carlsbad Caverns National Park as well as Guadalupe Mountains National Park (highest point in Texas).  Ugghhh!  Will the Parks open soon?  We've been discussing options the past few days and will make a decision to head south and hope the parks open or to head east on 40 and perhaps hit a few more high points along the way to FL.  Decisions!  :-)

Til next time...Happy Trails!