{"id":1785,"date":"2008-10-04T18:10:34","date_gmt":"2008-10-04T22:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/?p=1785"},"modified":"2008-10-14T11:23:40","modified_gmt":"2008-10-14T15:23:40","slug":"albuquerque-balloon-fiesta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/?p=1785","title":{"rendered":"Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday we met with 28 other Airstreams at the Camping World on I-40, and the entire line of aluminum caravanned together to the Balloon Fiesta Park on the north side of Albuquerque. \u00a0 From a gravel lot overlooking the Balloon Fiesta field, we will spend four nights watching all things related to hot-air and gas ballooning going on. \u00a0 This is our final blowout adventure of this season of travel.<\/p>\n

The danger of attending the famous Albuquerque Balloon Festival is that you’ll take too many photographs. \u00a0 Actually, it’s inevitable. \u00a0 The balloons are so colorful and scenic that you can’t stop at, say, 100 photos. \u00a0 I got up in the 5 a.m. darkness to scout a location for photos of the “Dawn Patrol,” and by 8 a.m. I had filled a memory card with over 300 photos. \u00a0 Don’t worry, you don’t have to look at all of them. \u00a0 You can see some of them on Flickr by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n

This is also an event designed to mess with your Circadian sleep cycle. \u00a0 Everything happens between 5:45 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., then again from about 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., when the winds are light. \u00a0 \u00a0 In between, there’s little to see except the long row of merchants, arranged like a county fair, that runs next to the balloon launching field. \u00a0 If you try to be awake for everything, like we are doing, it means a nap in the afternoon is a really good idea. Normally that would work for me, but with all the socializing going on, I haven’t been successful today.<\/p>\n

\"balloon-fest-693.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Balloon Museum, by Bill Ferry <\/em><\/p>\n

The other hazard to successful sleep is generators. \u00a0 We are parked in tight rows. \u00a0 Behind us is a row of Country Coach motorhomes. \u00a0 In front of us are three rows of Prevost bus-based motorhomes ($1 million and up each). \u00a0 All of these motorhomes have diesel generators built into them, and the Balloon Fiesta allows very liberal generator hours, from 5 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. \u00a0 Even though those diesel generators are pretty quiet, we can hear them running for hours on end, and the fumes of diesel can be intense. \u00a0 We have to sleep with the windows and vents shut completely.<\/p>\n

Emma linked up with Olivia, a 5-year-old girl who is the only other kid in our group. \u00a0 The two of them spent the afternoon building a robot (named “Rusty Sprockets”) from paper, and then running the classic lemonade stand next to Olivia’s trailer. \u00a0 They cashed in to the tune of several bucks and so tomorrow they want to try selling popcorn instead.<\/p>\n

I’ve been surprised at the number of people here who say they’ve been following our blog. \u00a0 There seem to be many people reading it who prefer to remain anonymous. \u00a0 That’s fine, but it makes me wonder what I will do to stay in touch after next week, when this blog will end. It’s a subject of much debate in my mind right now.<\/p>\n

Tonight the schedule calls for another balloon launch and some fireworks. \u00a0 The wind has picked up and the forecast is for rain tonight, so I doubt we will see any balloons taking off, but there will likely be a “balloon glow” at least. We may stay in and get to bed early. \u00a0 Tomorrow the schedule repeats, starting once again with 5:45 a.m. for those who care to get up. \u00a0 Those who don’t care to get up will be up anyway, around the same time, when the generators all fire up to run coffeepots in the morning. \u00a0 So I have a feeling we’ll all be ready to hit the sack by 9 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday we met with 28 other Airstreams at the Camping World on I-40, and the entire line of aluminum caravanned together to the Balloon Fiesta Park on the north side of Albuquerque. \u00a0 From a gravel lot overlooking the Balloon Fiesta field, we will spend four nights watching all things related to hot-air and gas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}