Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

After leaving Oregon, we stopped in Visalia, CA, to meet up with friends Pat & Gary Quilla. After seeing their beautiful home and museum, we had a wonderful dinner on the river. Next morning we all headed for Albuquerque to meet up with Monaco friends for the International Balloon Fiesta. On the way, we stopped for a tour of an Indian Pueblo - Acoma or Sky City. Sky City is on a mesa about 40 miles west of Albuquerque and is a must see if you are in the area. Some of the buildings in the pueblo date back to the 1100's. Our tour guide lives on the mesa 365 days a year and is raising his children there. They really live between two worlds. They have no running water, no electricity, and no sewers but the children attend school off of the mesa. Our guide also explained that many of the residents of Sky City live off the mesa, but return and live there for their holy days.

Dinner by the river

Sky City Pueblos

San Estaban de Rey Mission at Sky City

We had a wonderful time at the Balloon Fiesta. We were parked (along with about 85 other Monaco coaches) in a primo spot, on a bluff just south of the balloon launch field. We could sit in the coach and watch the balloon launches. That was really great at 6am, when it was chilly 45 degrees outside. Peggy's friend Janet drove over from Surprise and spent a few days with us. John met one of the balloon pilots through friends at the rally, and became a member of the crew for the Air Apparent. This entailed John getting up at 5 am or earlier and going out to help launch the balloon for dawn patrol, or just a little later for the mass ascensions. John had a wonderful time, and was rewarded on Saturday morning by getting to ride in the balloon when it went up for dawn patrol. After his ride, they opened a bottle of champagne - and they drank it instead of pouring it over his head! I don't know what was more exciting, watching the lighted balloons or the mass ascensions.......picture if you can over 800 beautiful multi-colored balloons lifting floating up into the sky. On Saturday night, Peggy went down to the field to get some close up shots of John crewing for the balloon glow. Just after they got the balloon inflated, the winds started whipping up and Peggy was quickly drafted as the crew fought to get the balloon deflated and down on the ground. Every evening after the balloon glows, we were treated to a spectacular fireworks show. Peggy and Janet watched most of those from the coach, sipping hot chocolate!

Peggy & Janet at Balloon Glow

View of Balloon Glow from coach

Balloons in competition

Peggy says she has too many great balloon fiesta pictures to include here, so check out this site if you'd like to see them. http://photos.yahoo.com/rahkola