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Our Practice Run for Retirement
As we approached Albuquerque, we noticed it was very hazy. It quickly became so thick it completely obscured the mountains. We were concerned this might be smoke from the Colorado fires we had heard about on the news, especially since we had both been fighting allergies for the last month, and didn't need to be breathing smoke. A consultation with Google revealed the forest service was doing a controlled burn just north of the city. Great, just what we needed, unhealthy air. Fortunately it was blowing north, and we drove through it somewhat before entering the city. The next day, the local news reported the air was still unhealthy, but at least visually it cleared up pretty fast.
The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta (not Festival) is the largest in the world, with over 500 balloons each year. It started in 1972 when a local radio station decided to try to beat the 19 balloons in one place record, set previously in England. They failed that first year, due to bad weather but they have exceeded their wildest expectations in the years since. They also hosted the first Hot-Air Balloon Championship and balloon races are a big part of this annual event. In 2000 they hosted their largest ever event with 1,019 balloons. I guess this was a little too big since they decided to restrict the number of balloons to 750. Choosing quality over quantity they have now reduced the number of balloons to a maximum of 600. The fiesta has been very successful for two reasons, the great Albuquerque fall weather (generally sunny and 60-80 degrees) and the "Albuquerque Box" – a predictable wind patterns that allow the balloonists to fly north at low altitude and south at higher altitude. The balloonists can fly the “box” several times and then land back where they took off.
At most Ballooning events they rope the inflation area off and only the participants are allowed on the launch field. Albuquerque is one of the few Fiestas where they allow the spectators to be on the field with the balloons which makes for a great immersive experience. I can understand why they don’t allow it at other fiestas since the balloons can cost more than $100k but it is really cool to stand right beside the balloons as they are blown up and launched.
The weather had been rainy for most of the week prior to our visit, which must have been disappointing for all the folks who had come for the first half of the Fiesta. It worked out for us though given the weather was great for the last 4 days of the event when we were there (We were excited to come to the Balloon Fiesta but didn’t think we needed 10 days of ballooning – especially at the exorbitant rates the RV parks were charging. To our surprise we found the RV rates in Santa Fe – over 1 hour away, had also been jacked up so it turns out we didn’t save much money on our 'rent’).
The Fiesta has essentially 2 sessions everyday. A glow and launch in the mornings and then a glow in the evenings with little to do in the afternoons. This allows them to charge 2 entry and parking fees per day but it also works for the visitors since the morning sessions begin at 6:00am and the evening sessions just before sun down (Dessa and I definitely were glad to go home for an afternoon nap J).
For the morning sessions, they recommend that you get there early given the large crowds expected to attend. We therefore got up at 4:00am Saturday morning and headed for the Fiesta grounds, which were about 30 minutes away from our RV Park. Traffic was a lot worse than we expected (even with the warning). Waze directed us around some of it, but by 5:45 we were at a dead standstill and still more than 1 mile from the parking lot. After not moving at all for another ten minutes we decided we were going to miss the glow even if the traffic started to move, so we abandoned the effort and drove back to the trailer. Epic fail! We went home, back to bed and slept till 11.
The evening glow was scheduled to begin at 6pm and to be sure we didn’t miss out again, we left the trailer at 3pm. There was a lot less traffic in the afternoon, so we made it to the park shortly after 3:30pm giving us lots of time to check out the vendors and displays as well as listen to the live bands Dessa also enjoyed a visit to the beer garden while we waited for dusk.
The balloon launch area was about the size of three football fields, and at five o’clock it was empty. Within an hour, there were hundreds of balloons in various stages of inflation. It was really cool to watch the crews unload, stretch out the balloons, hold them open while they filled them with air from a huge fan and eventually stand them up with their hot air burners. When full, the balloons were so close together they were almost touching. The balloons were brilliantly colored and while most were teardrop shaped, there were plenty of animals, fish, people, even a chuck wagon and a pirate ship. Some of them didn’t take off during our visits, they were only there to participate in the Glows. A Glow is really cool. With all the balloons inflated the various crews would turn their burners on and off filling the balloons and the launch field with light. From a distance, they would look like twinkling Christmas lights, but up close they looked like giant light bulbs. There is no “launch” at night, but after the glow there was laser light show and fireworks. We escaped ahead of most of the traffic, and watched the fireworks from the truck.
The next morning was the final day of the Fiesta. This time we took no chances and got up at 3am. We had almost no traffic trouble, and were in the parking lot before 4am. The gates didn’t open till 4:30 and the first activity was at 6am, so I napped while Bill played on his iPad till it was time to go inside. The mass ascension was scheduled for 8am, but prior to that they had another glow, and the Dawn Patrol launch. The Dawn Patrol is a group of balloons that go up first to test the wind. We thought the mass ascension meant they would all go up at once but they actually took off a few at a time. Still the sky was filled with balloons as they drifted away giving us plenty of photo ops.
Bill was using a tripod, so he would set up in a spot and stay there for a while. I wanted to move around, so I would leave him and come back a few minutes later. During one of my excursions, he decided to move, so when I returned I could not find him (in my defense, Dessa wandered away for quite a while and I wanted to get some other shots too). Fortunately our cell phones worked which was great news as we have been places where they don’t at large events with huge crowds of people. Unfortunately, we still could not find each other because the crowd was so dense. After about 5 minutes, we just gave up so we wouldn’t miss our photo window searching for each other. This worked out well in the end, since we got different perspectives on the action. By 9am we were all done and in need of another nap. As you might imagine, we both had hundreds of pictures to evaluate.
In the meantime, my new macro lens (Dessa had to have one too since I love mine) had arrived. You will be thrilled to hear we went to the Bio-Park Botanical Garden to try it out. Guess what…there were lots of bees. Hope you are eager for more flower and bug pictures. At least they were big American Bumble Bees. Let’s face it, Bill and I LOVE macro photography. We can’t help it. It is really fun to search for a subject, take the pictures, and then when we get home, see if we captured a great shot. The beauty in the details, and the things in the photo that we did not notice with the naked eye often amaze us. It is challenging to first find something special, get close enough to it, have a good angle, proper light, clear focus, and often it is a moving target even when it is a flower because of wind. To discover that we succeeded is a great accomplishment. To discover there was something in the picture we did not expect is fun too. I guess we are easily amused. On this trip I got my best picture ever. I found a jumping spider that was about the size of a nickel, devouring a bee. The bee had a fly on its wing, and the fly has a bubble on its mouth. We both took lots of pictures (at least 50 between us), and neither of us saw the fly, much less the bubble. We both got great shots, and they are amazing (to me anyway). This was just one of many photos that we decided were good enough to share with you. We only keep and share 3 to 5% of the pictures we take, so obviously we reject the vast majority of them.
We have decided to only post the pictures on Flicker, so when you view them, you get the best possible quality of the images. It is also much easier to scroll through them. Just click on the separate link in the email (or copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bill_and_ dessa/albums/72157661172433735 ). I promise you will see the improvement. Bill also uploaded 2 videos: one of them is clips from our time with Hunter around Hallowe'en and the other is the montage of clips from our visit to Albuquerque.
While we were in Albuquerque we got a few unwelcomed surprises. The first was a call about Bill’s brother-in-law. He is 57 and had a stroke while out on a run. Ian is a regular marathon runner so he’s super fit, and the last person you would expect to have a health crisis. He lives in Canada with the rest of Bill’s family, and is recovering well. A second call came only an hour later. Our daughter-in-law Ashlee had pulled an abdominal muscle at work (lifting a stretcher) and gone into preterm labor at 31 weeks. She was released from hospital right after the Balloon Fiesta ended but on prescriptions for anti-contraction drugs and with orders for complete bed rest. Since Alex needs to work, and someone was needed to take care of Ashlee and Hunter (our 2 year old Grandson), we headed home.
Two days later, we were about an hour from Dallas when we had our second tire blow out. This time the body damage was minor, but the hydraulic lines for our landing and leveling gear were cut, and fluid was gushing out. Attempts to stop the leak were futile, so after getting the tire changed we limped into town to the RV repair shop. After two nights on the couch at Alex’s house, Bill decided to go get the trailer so we could live in it until they could get the parts for the repairs. A week later pretty much zero progress had been made on ordering parts, so we took it back to the RV dealership in Rockwall where we bought it. These guys did the inspection, took pictures and started the repair estimate while Bill waited. Two hours later, Bill was back in the trailer and headed to Anna to replace all the tires on the trailer. The OEM tires were Westlakes and neither of us trusted them anymore so we dropped $2000 to replace them with Goodyears. We had expected to have to camp out on Alex’s couch again but everything came together and we were back in the RV Park that evening.
As it turns out, we got lucky again the next morning. The heavy rainstorms that had hit north Texas shortly after we got home brought down a tree at our campsite. The snapping of the trunk woke us both up but we didn’t notice any damage to the trailer or realize it was a downed tree at 2:00am. When we got up in the morning however, we saw that a tree had missed our trailer by inches. It had been raining pretty heavily and was windy that night but we didn’t think it had been that bad. The tree trunk though had snapped at the ground and the whole tree fell.
Shortly after this, my mom had a second stroke. This one was very much like the first one. She spent a week in the hospital and went from not knowing who we were or where she was, to nearly a full recovery. Prior to the stroke, Mom had decided she was not happy at the Independent Living facility she had moved her into in July. She wanted to move back to her home of 30 years. Some steps had already been taken towards moving her home but there was still a lot to do. So while she was hospitalized, the family finished packing her stuff and arranged movers. As fate would have it, the hospital decided to release her on the same day that her furniture got moved back in. We would have liked another day or 2 to get everything unpacked but this was better than an earlier release where she really wouldn’t have had anyplace to go.
As I type this, we have been back in Dallas for almost 6 weeks. Mom is home and mostly settled thanks to lots of help from her sister Doris who stayed with her for the first 2 weeks - thank goodness she was available to help. Ashlee is now 37 weeks (which is a small miracle since she had three return trips to the hospital while we’ve been home) and is off the anti-contraction drugs. She is not on absolutely strict bed rest anymore, which I’m sure is helping with her sanity, but Hunter still doesn’t understand that his Mom can’t do everything she use to do with him. We are still waiting for parts for the trailer, and living in it on a slight tilt, since we can’t properly level it without the hydraulic jacks. At this point, we are home for the holidays, so our travels are at a standstill. That is until November 28th, when we head to Grand Cayman for two weeks of diving and sunbathing. We can’t wait!!!
As Dessa said, we’ve been home for a month - more importantly though, our adventure has recently passed the 1-year mark. We left for Galveston on Nov 3, 2014 and since that time we have visited 5 countries and traveled over 50,000 miles on planes, trains, boats, tuk tuks, motorcycles and our truck. It has been quite the adventure so far and even with the family hiccups to our original plans, one that I am so glad we decided to take. Also deserving of a mention, we have spent an entire year together 24/7/365. For the most part, we haven’t been apart for more than a few hours when I would go to a salon. We really are very compatible, happy to spend everyday together, and very content living in our tiny 300+ square foot house. It has been great fun, and a hell of a lot more work than you think (or than we expected) to plan each stop, decide where to stay and what to see and do. Our photography fetish, and blogging also take quite a bit of effort and time. Not complaining mind you, I’m just saying it was easy to fill our days.
Next up, a family Thanksgiving at Sami’s new house followed by 2 weeks of Scuba diving in Grand Cayman and then Christmas! Somewhere in there Ashlee will bless us with our 2nd Grandson. Still lots to keep us busy and entertained!
The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta (not Festival) is the largest in the world, with over 500 balloons each year. It started in 1972 when a local radio station decided to try to beat the 19 balloons in one place record, set previously in England. They failed that first year, due to bad weather but they have exceeded their wildest expectations in the years since. They also hosted the first Hot-Air Balloon Championship and balloon races are a big part of this annual event. In 2000 they hosted their largest ever event with 1,019 balloons. I guess this was a little too big since they decided to restrict the number of balloons to 750. Choosing quality over quantity they have now reduced the number of balloons to a maximum of 600. The fiesta has been very successful for two reasons, the great Albuquerque fall weather (generally sunny and 60-80 degrees) and the "Albuquerque Box" – a predictable wind patterns that allow the balloonists to fly north at low altitude and south at higher altitude. The balloonists can fly the “box” several times and then land back where they took off.
At most Ballooning events they rope the inflation area off and only the participants are allowed on the launch field. Albuquerque is one of the few Fiestas where they allow the spectators to be on the field with the balloons which makes for a great immersive experience. I can understand why they don’t allow it at other fiestas since the balloons can cost more than $100k but it is really cool to stand right beside the balloons as they are blown up and launched.
The weather had been rainy for most of the week prior to our visit, which must have been disappointing for all the folks who had come for the first half of the Fiesta. It worked out for us though given the weather was great for the last 4 days of the event when we were there (We were excited to come to the Balloon Fiesta but didn’t think we needed 10 days of ballooning – especially at the exorbitant rates the RV parks were charging. To our surprise we found the RV rates in Santa Fe – over 1 hour away, had also been jacked up so it turns out we didn’t save much money on our 'rent’).
The Fiesta has essentially 2 sessions everyday. A glow and launch in the mornings and then a glow in the evenings with little to do in the afternoons. This allows them to charge 2 entry and parking fees per day but it also works for the visitors since the morning sessions begin at 6:00am and the evening sessions just before sun down (Dessa and I definitely were glad to go home for an afternoon nap J).
For the morning sessions, they recommend that you get there early given the large crowds expected to attend. We therefore got up at 4:00am Saturday morning and headed for the Fiesta grounds, which were about 30 minutes away from our RV Park. Traffic was a lot worse than we expected (even with the warning). Waze directed us around some of it, but by 5:45 we were at a dead standstill and still more than 1 mile from the parking lot. After not moving at all for another ten minutes we decided we were going to miss the glow even if the traffic started to move, so we abandoned the effort and drove back to the trailer. Epic fail! We went home, back to bed and slept till 11.
The evening glow was scheduled to begin at 6pm and to be sure we didn’t miss out again, we left the trailer at 3pm. There was a lot less traffic in the afternoon, so we made it to the park shortly after 3:30pm giving us lots of time to check out the vendors and displays as well as listen to the live bands Dessa also enjoyed a visit to the beer garden while we waited for dusk.
The balloon launch area was about the size of three football fields, and at five o’clock it was empty. Within an hour, there were hundreds of balloons in various stages of inflation. It was really cool to watch the crews unload, stretch out the balloons, hold them open while they filled them with air from a huge fan and eventually stand them up with their hot air burners. When full, the balloons were so close together they were almost touching. The balloons were brilliantly colored and while most were teardrop shaped, there were plenty of animals, fish, people, even a chuck wagon and a pirate ship. Some of them didn’t take off during our visits, they were only there to participate in the Glows. A Glow is really cool. With all the balloons inflated the various crews would turn their burners on and off filling the balloons and the launch field with light. From a distance, they would look like twinkling Christmas lights, but up close they looked like giant light bulbs. There is no “launch” at night, but after the glow there was laser light show and fireworks. We escaped ahead of most of the traffic, and watched the fireworks from the truck.
The next morning was the final day of the Fiesta. This time we took no chances and got up at 3am. We had almost no traffic trouble, and were in the parking lot before 4am. The gates didn’t open till 4:30 and the first activity was at 6am, so I napped while Bill played on his iPad till it was time to go inside. The mass ascension was scheduled for 8am, but prior to that they had another glow, and the Dawn Patrol launch. The Dawn Patrol is a group of balloons that go up first to test the wind. We thought the mass ascension meant they would all go up at once but they actually took off a few at a time. Still the sky was filled with balloons as they drifted away giving us plenty of photo ops.
Bill was using a tripod, so he would set up in a spot and stay there for a while. I wanted to move around, so I would leave him and come back a few minutes later. During one of my excursions, he decided to move, so when I returned I could not find him (in my defense, Dessa wandered away for quite a while and I wanted to get some other shots too). Fortunately our cell phones worked which was great news as we have been places where they don’t at large events with huge crowds of people. Unfortunately, we still could not find each other because the crowd was so dense. After about 5 minutes, we just gave up so we wouldn’t miss our photo window searching for each other. This worked out well in the end, since we got different perspectives on the action. By 9am we were all done and in need of another nap. As you might imagine, we both had hundreds of pictures to evaluate.
In the meantime, my new macro lens (Dessa had to have one too since I love mine) had arrived. You will be thrilled to hear we went to the Bio-Park Botanical Garden to try it out. Guess what…there were lots of bees. Hope you are eager for more flower and bug pictures. At least they were big American Bumble Bees. Let’s face it, Bill and I LOVE macro photography. We can’t help it. It is really fun to search for a subject, take the pictures, and then when we get home, see if we captured a great shot. The beauty in the details, and the things in the photo that we did not notice with the naked eye often amaze us. It is challenging to first find something special, get close enough to it, have a good angle, proper light, clear focus, and often it is a moving target even when it is a flower because of wind. To discover that we succeeded is a great accomplishment. To discover there was something in the picture we did not expect is fun too. I guess we are easily amused. On this trip I got my best picture ever. I found a jumping spider that was about the size of a nickel, devouring a bee. The bee had a fly on its wing, and the fly has a bubble on its mouth. We both took lots of pictures (at least 50 between us), and neither of us saw the fly, much less the bubble. We both got great shots, and they are amazing (to me anyway). This was just one of many photos that we decided were good enough to share with you. We only keep and share 3 to 5% of the pictures we take, so obviously we reject the vast majority of them.
We have decided to only post the pictures on Flicker, so when you view them, you get the best possible quality of the images. It is also much easier to scroll through them. Just click on the separate link in the email (or copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bill_and_ dessa/albums/72157661172433735 ). I promise you will see the improvement. Bill also uploaded 2 videos: one of them is clips from our time with Hunter around Hallowe'en and the other is the montage of clips from our visit to Albuquerque.
While we were in Albuquerque we got a few unwelcomed surprises. The first was a call about Bill’s brother-in-law. He is 57 and had a stroke while out on a run. Ian is a regular marathon runner so he’s super fit, and the last person you would expect to have a health crisis. He lives in Canada with the rest of Bill’s family, and is recovering well. A second call came only an hour later. Our daughter-in-law Ashlee had pulled an abdominal muscle at work (lifting a stretcher) and gone into preterm labor at 31 weeks. She was released from hospital right after the Balloon Fiesta ended but on prescriptions for anti-contraction drugs and with orders for complete bed rest. Since Alex needs to work, and someone was needed to take care of Ashlee and Hunter (our 2 year old Grandson), we headed home.
Two days later, we were about an hour from Dallas when we had our second tire blow out. This time the body damage was minor, but the hydraulic lines for our landing and leveling gear were cut, and fluid was gushing out. Attempts to stop the leak were futile, so after getting the tire changed we limped into town to the RV repair shop. After two nights on the couch at Alex’s house, Bill decided to go get the trailer so we could live in it until they could get the parts for the repairs. A week later pretty much zero progress had been made on ordering parts, so we took it back to the RV dealership in Rockwall where we bought it. These guys did the inspection, took pictures and started the repair estimate while Bill waited. Two hours later, Bill was back in the trailer and headed to Anna to replace all the tires on the trailer. The OEM tires were Westlakes and neither of us trusted them anymore so we dropped $2000 to replace them with Goodyears. We had expected to have to camp out on Alex’s couch again but everything came together and we were back in the RV Park that evening.
As it turns out, we got lucky again the next morning. The heavy rainstorms that had hit north Texas shortly after we got home brought down a tree at our campsite. The snapping of the trunk woke us both up but we didn’t notice any damage to the trailer or realize it was a downed tree at 2:00am. When we got up in the morning however, we saw that a tree had missed our trailer by inches. It had been raining pretty heavily and was windy that night but we didn’t think it had been that bad. The tree trunk though had snapped at the ground and the whole tree fell.
Shortly after this, my mom had a second stroke. This one was very much like the first one. She spent a week in the hospital and went from not knowing who we were or where she was, to nearly a full recovery. Prior to the stroke, Mom had decided she was not happy at the Independent Living facility she had moved her into in July. She wanted to move back to her home of 30 years. Some steps had already been taken towards moving her home but there was still a lot to do. So while she was hospitalized, the family finished packing her stuff and arranged movers. As fate would have it, the hospital decided to release her on the same day that her furniture got moved back in. We would have liked another day or 2 to get everything unpacked but this was better than an earlier release where she really wouldn’t have had anyplace to go.
As I type this, we have been back in Dallas for almost 6 weeks. Mom is home and mostly settled thanks to lots of help from her sister Doris who stayed with her for the first 2 weeks - thank goodness she was available to help. Ashlee is now 37 weeks (which is a small miracle since she had three return trips to the hospital while we’ve been home) and is off the anti-contraction drugs. She is not on absolutely strict bed rest anymore, which I’m sure is helping with her sanity, but Hunter still doesn’t understand that his Mom can’t do everything she use to do with him. We are still waiting for parts for the trailer, and living in it on a slight tilt, since we can’t properly level it without the hydraulic jacks. At this point, we are home for the holidays, so our travels are at a standstill. That is until November 28th, when we head to Grand Cayman for two weeks of diving and sunbathing. We can’t wait!!!
As Dessa said, we’ve been home for a month - more importantly though, our adventure has recently passed the 1-year mark. We left for Galveston on Nov 3, 2014 and since that time we have visited 5 countries and traveled over 50,000 miles on planes, trains, boats, tuk tuks, motorcycles and our truck. It has been quite the adventure so far and even with the family hiccups to our original plans, one that I am so glad we decided to take. Also deserving of a mention, we have spent an entire year together 24/7/365. For the most part, we haven’t been apart for more than a few hours when I would go to a salon. We really are very compatible, happy to spend everyday together, and very content living in our tiny 300+ square foot house. It has been great fun, and a hell of a lot more work than you think (or than we expected) to plan each stop, decide where to stay and what to see and do. Our photography fetish, and blogging also take quite a bit of effort and time. Not complaining mind you, I’m just saying it was easy to fill our days.
Next up, a family Thanksgiving at Sami’s new house followed by 2 weeks of Scuba diving in Grand Cayman and then Christmas! Somewhere in there Ashlee will bless us with our 2nd Grandson. Still lots to keep us busy and entertained!
- comments
Susan Motheral Wow! What a beautiful dragon fly and an absolutely great photo! Neat!
JoAnne I’m following your adventures. RVing is a wonderful lifestyle. Have fun and make memories. These are Happy Days. Love, Joanna