Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Rally

On the balloon launch field for Dawn Patrol; this is a special time of the day, not too crowded, kind of quiet and there are six balloons glowing in the dark of early morning. At 7am the first big group of balloons lifted off, over the next few hours 500 balloons flew. It was absolutely amazing to watch all the shapes and colors float away right over our heads. For lunch, the Monaco group met at a local Mexican restaurant, the food was great and the ambiance was fabulous, it has at least four outdoor adobe fireplaces and it was just cool enough to have them fired up. We visited the balloon museum. In the evening, we were back on the balloon launch field for the Special Shapes Glowdeo.  The fireworks last night were very good, well tonight they out did themselves.  We like fireworks and appreciated the wonderful show.
 

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

We were up early for Dawn Patrol. At 5:45 about six pilots fire up and you see the light of the balloons glow in the morning darkness. A beautiful sight as they float away.   By 7:00 the sun was up and a number of balloons were taking off, it was quite a site. You may walk around the balloons and chat with the Balloon pilots and crews, we have learned so much. The Monaco group met at a local country club for lunch. We sat with Walt and Brenda and enjoyed great conversation and good food. Later, we got back out on the hot air balloon field. We ended the evening enjoying some wine while we watched the fireworks.

Monaco International Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Rally

We were up at 5:00 in the morning and headed out to the Monaco International Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Rally. We got the RV parked and setup quickly and meeting our neighbors by 1:00 in the afternoon. Later we joined the Welcome Social and we met a lot more people. We sat with Walt and Brenda from Mobile and enjoyed trading travel stories with them.

Dinner was catered by Rudy's Bar-B-Q; we always loved Rudy's food and they did not disappoint tonight. A hot air balloonist named Skip let us get into the basket of his balloon and control the fire handle.

Whitesands Missile Range RV Park

Last night and tonight we are at Whitesands Missile Range's RV park in New Mexico. I like this place, the RV  lots are very long and there is a workout trail adjacent to the RV park. We met some of the neighbors. One nice couple, Brad and Elizabeth, are not only headed to the BalloonFest but are also parking by the launch field with the Monaco International Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Rally, like us.

If you ever find yourself in the Las Cruses area, you should pop into the Game II Bar & Grill, great food! Denisha was our friendly server. The cobb salad and turkey sandwich were very good, but the green chili beef stew is amazing. A good stop.

We will be at the BalloonFest tomorrow, I'm so excited!

RV in the Shop

As we were driving through Tucson we stopped to have a coolant leak looked at on our RV. Early evening, we pulled into Camping World and a tech looked at it for us and told us that it may be two leaks and it didn't look good.  They let us spend the night there.  We called CoachNet and Karen was very helpful, she set up an appointment at Lazydays. This morning our coach was in the shop at Lazydays and we were working with service advisor Jennifer. The bad news is that we need a new radiator, the good news is Jennifer's technician patched us up, topped of the radiator with coolant, and we will still make it to the BalloonFest. Lazydays will order the new radiator and we will return next week to have them replace our bad one.

Las Vegas

  We spent Friday night at the Nellis AFB RV park and had a good time with dinner and gaming in Vegas. Before we left Nellis we reserved a few more nights for later this month. We will stay at Nellis a few days leading up to  Entegra's OctoberFest in Las Vegas.
Driving south today.

Ely, Nevada

We visited our adventurous and dynamic friends, Louise and Birdie at their summer home in Ely, Nevada. They have a wonderful place overlooking a nature park where the deer show up as the sun goes down. Louise took us off-roading in their fun 4-wheeler jeep and gave us a tour of the town. Ely is a friendly little western town with lots of history. When we returned to Birdie, he had a fire roaring in the fire pit. We spent hours talking by the fire. I believe it was the first time in weeks that both John and I sat back and kicked up our feet up and really relaxed. Good conversation, good friends, it was a good night.

Maggie, their dog, just may be
the smartest pooch we've ever met.