Albuquerque Balloon Fest 10-9-2011

It hasn’t been the best week we ever had.  It has been the best Balloon Fest we have ever seen, oh wait, it’s the only Balloon Fest we’ve ever seen.  It has been wet and cold most of the time.  The balloons couldn’t fly on Thursday or Friday due to the weather.  Saturday they said about 500 got up but none of the really large special shapes were flown.  This morning most of the remaining balloons did fly but not all and some had even gone home.  The question would be was it worth it and even with the bad weather I would still have to say, YES.  It is unlike anything you will see any place else in the World.  In fact it is 4 times bigger than the next largest.  We just wish it had been as spectacular as it could have been.  With that said, these pictures don’t come close to showing what it is like to actually be here.  Before I do the pictures I just need to say we are still in Albuquerque at an RV Park West of town on I-40.  We were only able to get tonight with a possibility of tomorrow night.  We will have to check in the morning if we want to stay another night.

Yes that is snow on the mountains East of us about 10 miles.


The cow never got off the ground.

Albuquerque Balloon Fest 10-5-2011

Yes we made it; however due to rain all events on Wednesday were cancelled.  This morning the special shape balloons were scheduled to launch but due to high wind they were grounded.  They did go ahead and inflate them but they had to stay on the ground.  We went down to the Balloon Museum front yard and watched them inflate.  The special shapes are scheduled to launch again tomorrow morning and we are sure hoping that happens.  These are some of the pictures I took this morning with the balloons on the ground.





They were also suppose to have a balloon glow tonight but they tried and there was too much wind.  They did have a really nice fireworks display tonight.  We’ll just have to see about tomorrow.

Heading for the Balloon Fest in Albuquerque

We left out from our pad at Cushing, Oklahoma Sunday the 2nd and drove over to my brother’s house at Perkins, Oklahoma.  At the last minute, actually it was Saturday, he was able to clear his work schedule to go with us.  His wife, Pat, was already scheduled to go with us.  I called the tour leaders and confirmed they could work him in and also confirmed they had had a cancellation for one couple that had been scheduled to go on the trip.  I ask my brother, Bill, if he wanted to take his motor home and he said he had already winterized it.  It was about an hour when his wife called and ask me if I could help her get the motor home ready so they could take it and of course I said yes.  So I called back to the tour company and told them he was going to take the empty spot
We parked in Bill’s driveway Sunday night and then we headed out Monday morning about 7:30am with our two motor homes and Jack and Barbara Miller’s 5th wheel.  We got to Oklahoma City and picked up Gary and Mattie House, Clarence and Virginia Byrom, and Don and Kathie Bryan with their RV’s and we all headed for Amarillo, Texas.
We stayed overnight at the Overnite RV Park in Amarillo and then pulled into Tucumcari, New Mexico yesterday.  We met with everyone in our tour group last night and we are schedule to leave at 7:30am this morning.  There are 13 rigs total in the group.  It should be interesting to move that many rigs down Interstate 40 into Albuquerque.  I figure there will be lots of cars very unhappy with us.
I will try to post during the Balloon Fest and should have lots of pictures.