Although we had taken a spring vacation we had always wanted to go to the Annual Hot Air Balloon Festival in Alburqueqie New Mexico which is held the first week in October. We both had one week vacation time to use so booked our tickets and off we went
Because we were using our frequent flyer milage we couldn't fly directly into New Mexico. We flew into Denver, Colorado and then boarded a small propeller plane onto Durango Colorado. We boarded and disembarked right from the runway! Sheila was a bit nervous in this small plane which was noisy but really not that bad. We couldn't sit together as I had been seated on the left side of the plane which was only a single row of seats. Sheila was seated on the right side which had two rows and and sat next to a nice lady who was from the area. She advised Sheila to drive east and to stay in Pagosa Springs Colorado on our first night there.
We picked up our 2 suitcases and rented a Ford Escape 4x4 SUV (which is the same type of vehicle we had rented on our May trip).
A view of Durango, Colarodo.
It was around 2:00 PM MT when we headed east to Pegosa Springs, Colorado. Really nice ride with the autumn colors and mountain views. We rented a cabin on the banks of the San Juan river. It had a living room with a gas fireplace, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. There was a nice little deck overlooking yellow and orange autumn colored aspens and the spring waters of the river, hawks flying overhead.
Our rented 2003 Ford Escort parked outside our cabin.
Living room view inside the cabin.
We headed south to New Mexico having made reservation in Rio Rancho which was just north of Albequerque. We stayed Saturday and Sunday night at the Best Western which was only 10 minutes away from Balloon Fiesta Park.
Here's a picture of some cactus we saw as we drove into New Mexico.
It took most of the day to make our way there but arrived just in time to check in and still make it to an evening balloon event called "The Glow".
As the sky darkened the balloonist inflated their balloons. We wandered in between the hundreds of them as the PA system started a countdown from 10 to 1 and then shouted "GLOW!!!". They all pumped the propaine into the balloons at the same time lighting up the park in various colors, glowing to the hollering and whistling of the thousands of spectators.
The next morning we woke up early and were surprised by the view of hot air balloons right outside our window. We went out onto the deck to get a better view of them ascending and floating by.
We dressed ate and then hurried to the park to watch this awesum sight. Here are some of the wonderful balloons we saw.
Inflating their balloons with propaine.
taken from under the balloon looking up>
The Joker
These folks are inflating their hot air balloon.
The weather had been odd for this time of the year in this part of the country. A rare hurricaine had traveled over Mexico and headed up through New Mexico bringing rains they hadn't had in 5 years, and rains they hadn't had in the month of October since the early 1980's!. Lucky us.
We found out the balloon events had been cancelled for a day or so. We watched the weather channel and headed south east towards the White Sands National Monument where we wanted to visit and the weather was preety good.
Yucca Plants growing in the gypsum.
Pat standing on gypsum sand dunes.
We headed west to Billy the Kid territory, through Silver City and then onto the Gila (pronounced Hee-La) Indian Ruins.
They made their homes in areas of the caves where they were protected from the winter cold by the angle of the sun and cooled from the summer heat as well.
We found that many Indian ruins have these "T" shaped doorways.
Heading north again we went by an area called the Echo Ampatheater. A group of strange formations of rocks with cactus and beautiful views.
Further north we stopped for lunch at an odd spot called Rock City.
We stopped by Alburquerque again and caught site of more balloon festival events, odd shapes, great race, and one that involved grabbing an envelope from the top of a flagpole which had either $2000.00 in it or (only one had this) the keys to a brand new 2004 Ford F150 pickup truck (with a Harley Davidson theme to it).
And the balloons take off on the great race!
A few of the 'special shaped' balloons.
Here's Pat in her red USA sweatshirt, pointing at the balloons.
We made it north to another Indian ruin, the Aztec ruins, which they discovered in 1916 with a few "bricks" sticking out of the ground. When done excavating it turned out to be several buildings from over 1200 years ago, some being 3 stories high.
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Here's Pat inside of the Aztec Ruins.
Well, hope you enjoyed seeing our pictures and hearing about our vacation to New Mexico.
Thanks for visiting!
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