We went to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta last week. I took my girlfriend and her daughter. We met my sister and some friends out there. We crewed for one of the balloons, sadly no ride this time, but we had a blast.
Here are some random pics. I’ll probably get more posted soon.
The guy in the black jacket holding up the balloon is me.
My gfs daughter had a blast and we all really enjoyed it.
Slee
FoS sleestak for not telling us before you went. I would have bought you guys dinner or something.
I didn’t have a chance to go to the actual Festival, but I did get a pretty awesome show on my way down to Albuquerque for my initial LASIK consultation the Friday after the main weekend.
I really gotta go there sometime.
I’m thinking… 2 years from now. Then I’ll have enough experience that I can hopefully avoid the weekend-pilots.
That would have been great but we had so much packed into the weekend that we wouldn’t have had a chance. Next time I am out there I’ll take you up on that. The schedule was this:
Thursday: 8 hour drive to ABQ
Friday 5 am: Go to field, go to offsite launch site and set up balloon.
~8am: Back at the park, wander around for a while, get food
~Noon: Go to the peak on the tram*
~4 pm, done with tram, catch an hour of sleep
~5 pm, head over to my friend house for dinner
~ 10 pm. Go home and crash
Saturday 5 am: Head to park again. Set up balloon hang out at the park and take tons of pictures.
11 am: Head over to another friends house.
2 pm: Grab lunch and then nap for an hour
4 pm: Meet sister for dinner and wander around Old Town until ~ 10 pm
11 PM: Crash. Hard
Sunday 8 AM: Farmers market for green chile
9 AM: On the road home
To make it a perfect weekend, I got to have some Los Quates Green Chile Cheese Fries. Man, those things are wonderful. Even better the second day.
*We went up the tram, which was packed. My girlfriend and her daughter really dug that as well. I totally earned bonus boyfriend points for this little adventure.
Slee
Awesome, I didn’t realize you were I pilot! Too cool! I saw the picture of you setting up the balloon, but just assumed you had chatted up a pilot and were helping him out a bit.
Los Quates* is pretty awesome, you’re right. The last time I was there, the waiter spilled the entire tray of drinks on our table. He was so apologetic, and my parents and I thought it was so funny. We were teasing him throughout the whole meal: “Would you like a tea refill?”, “Are you going to spill it on us?”
On a related note, very glad to hear you were able to restock your chile stash! I’m going to be down in Socorro tomorrow, so I’ll be sure to buy a couple bushels. Last year, my roommate and I bought five, and I’m almost out.
A couple questions, have you been to any other festivals? If so, what did you think of this one in comparison. If not, what did you think of this one in general, from a perspective the layperson would not generally see.
*Spanish for “The Twins”, for those wondering.