October 8th - 11th - Balloon Fiesta and My Flight

On the 8th our pilot did not go up due to weather conditions. On the 9th I got to fly. The weather was perfect so we took off from the field and headed out into the desert. Here is a video of me in the basket going up.

Here are a couple of pictures as we lifted from the field.

All the tents are vendors at the side of the field. The field is 57 football fields in size. This is the largest balloon event in the U.S. The pilots are given free hotels, some meals, free LP gas, a gasoline gift card, and an embroidered jacket for coming. Pilots come from all over the world because of the Albuquerque box. The air comes over the mountain and makes a box so that the balloons can fly one way, drop down, fly back, and then up again making a flight box. There are several places in the world that have this phenomenon but Albuquerque is the best.

Here we are going over other balloons.

These pictures are looking back over the field and us going over the river.

Here is a balloon going down in a residential area.

This is us flying over the cul de sac where we took off from two days before. I was shocked to see them inflate in the middle of a lot of trees. It is all about the wind conditions.

Our balloon was "Major Award". It is blue on top, white in the middle, and then red and blue. Here are a couple of pictures the chase crew took of our flight as they followed us.

We landed in a field just beyond a residential area. It was a great landing, touched once and bounced about a foot and we were down. We got the balloon down and in no time the chase crew was there to pack it up.  We flew at about six hundred feet. It is absolutely quiet except for the sound of propane when the pilot hits the burner. I expected to feel a lot of wind but I didn't. We flew about six miles out.

Nobody flew yesterday. Everything was cancelled due to high winds except the fireworks in the evening. Since we had the day off Kelly and I went with our new friends, Jane and Tom, to Sante Fe. Tom and Jane and been fulltiming in their motorhome for a year and we really hit it off with them. On the drive to Santa Fe (about 60 miles from Albuquerque) we booked a "Beer and Art Tour" of the downtown area for the afternoon. While waiting for the tour to start we walked around the downtown area and went through St. Francis of Assissi Basilica. Here are a couple of pictures.

This is the fourth church on this spot. The earlier ones were made out of adobe and the weather did them in over the years. This one is built out of sandstone.  Inside in a side chapel there is a statue of the Virgin Mary that came from Spain in the 1400s via Mexico. In the 1600s a priest from Mexico brought it here. Here are a couple of pictures.

We were the only four on the afternoon tour. We met with our guide at the Upper Crust Pizza Place where we sampled five different local beers. A couple were really good. We then headed down the street to the oldest house in the United States. It dates back to the early 1600s. Here is a picture of the outside. ItT has two small rooms downstairs and two small rooms upstairs. Our guide said nine families lived here. I can't even imagine.

From there we walked across the street to San Miguel Church. It is made out of adobe and dates back to the 1600s as well. Here are a couple of pictures. The first picture is today, the last picture was taken about 100 years ago.

San Miguel (St. Michael) in the middle rather than Jesus, pretty interesting.

From there we walked to the State Capitol Building. It was built in 1981 and everyone thought it was so ugly they planted trees all around it to hide it. Inside and out however are hundreds of works of art by artists of New Mexico. Here is a picture of one outside sculpture.

Inside the walls are lined with many, many works of art, approximately four hundred of differing styles. Very impressive.  From there we walked to a little house that had originally been one of several housing railroad workers. It was now a brew house. There we sampled five more beers. Here is a picture of the beer house, the beers, and us.

The tour lasted about an hour and was great fun. From there we walked back to the truck and headed to a Mexican restaurant for supper. Kelly said it was one of the best Mexican meals she had ever had. All of us liked what we ordered. We then headed back to Albuquerque. After being home about an hour and half and the fireworks started. I watched it from the RV park. It was just too cold to walk the mile to the field. They really put on a nice display and it was easily visible from behind our camper.

The temperature dropped significantly overnight as forecast. We didn't have the furnace on and when I got up at 5:30 a.m. it was 52 degrees inside. Our pilot picked us up at the RV park because we were heading North to launch and then fly back to the field to compete. They compete by dropping bags over big white 'X's on the field. They get points for competing and points for getting the closest. We all gathered in a field to await the opening of the field. They can only compete within a limited time frame. As we waited the weather got worse. Here are a couple of pictures I took as we were awaiting our turn to inflate.

This is a picture inside a balloon as it is being blown up by a big fan.

We were last to inflate and by the time it was our turn the wind had picked up too much and the pilot cancelled the flight even though the basket was up and we were ready to pull out the balloon. I was really disappointed for Tom and Jane who hoped to go up today. The last day our pilot is flying is tomorrow. I hope we have a great day so they can go up.