Special Shapes "Glowdeo" at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta

Basically the days of the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta can be broken into three parts. 
Early morning: dawn patrol at 6 AM, mass ascension at 7 AM,
evening: glows, musical performances, and AfterGlow fireworks,
daytime: flying competitions and non-balloon events.

Because of the weather, some of the evening glows have been cancelled. On Friday it was perfect, so we decided to go down to the launch field for the Special Shapes Glowdeo.

As the sky began filling with soft pink clouds the tethered balloons were inflated one by one all around us. They do not fly in the dark, but the propane flames illuminate them beautifully from within.
  

We saw some balloons that we had not seen before.  Mr. Owl was quite a delight!

We did see the owl glowing, but as with some other images here, the pictures of him unlit were better than the glowing ones.

Humpty Dumpty was a surprise since all other characters were upright.

As darkness fell the night was filled with the whoosh of propane flames. They do not run the burners continuously. They give it just enough to keep the balloons from tipping over, but not enough for them to lift off. Some of the time, it is very hard for the crew to hold the baskets down.

We had not seen this big guy before. He looked so happy, and so much like he wanted to play with the big balloon balls all around.

This Fiesta is one of the few that allow the public to be down on the launch field. When all of the huge characters are fully inflated, things become quite crowded. They are so big.

Who could not be happy under this enormous smile?

Finally, one by one they went dark and were deflated. The zebra was one of the last to go. 

We have so many happy memories from this week. If I ever find myself doubting what we are doing living in an RV instead of being proper "retired people in a house", I will come back to these posts and say "that's why!"

After the nightly fireworks show,  it was time to make our way back to the bus stop and get in line for a ride back to our RV. Some people complain about huge crowds, but I have found everyone in this one to be in a great mood. No pushing, no grumpy words or rudeness. All of the lines for food, buses and potties were long, but everyone was very patient! 

How could you not be after a show like that? 

River's Edge

Last winter, after I was sure our house sale would eventually close, I began making plans for this winter. Craig wanted to go to the Florida Keys if possible, so I used that as my destination goal. Our blogger friends Karen and Al have two lots in a park in the North Georgia Mountains, one of which they rent out. I asked her to save October for us.

As it turned out we arrived on Saturday, September 20. A little earlier than I had planned, but it worked for them because their last visitor had left a few days earlier. 

Their lots are in River's Edge, a lovely private park with large spaces, level concrete pads, full hook ups, and very nice people. It is about 10 miles from the town of Blairsville, which has both a high end supermarket and a Walmart.  What else do we need?

We will be here for a month, so I will have plenty of time to get some cleaning and sorting projects out of the way, and to rest after several months of travel. We spent much of our first day on the computer ordering things that we wanted from Amazon and other sites. Although we have a mail forwarding service, Amazon likes to have a street address for Fedex deliveries.  So if it wasn't needed right away, we kept saying "when we get to Georgia we will order this or that".

It feels like fall is here. The mornings have been cool, and the afternoons sunny but not hot.

There are many places to walk and hike in this area, so perhaps I will get some much-needed exercise. On Monday we went up to the observation tower on Brasstown Bald Mountain. The upper portion of the tower is not open to the public, but there is a large observation deck lower down that is.

Nottely Lake as seen from the observation tower at Brasstown Bald Mountain

We learned that the blue haze in the air over the mountains is not smoke. Its largest ingredient is isoprene gas released by decaying vegetation.

The 360 degree view was fantastic. I hope we can get back to this place the day before we leave so I can take a comparison picture. It seems the trees are just a tiny bit more colorful every day.

On Wednesday we went to Vogel State Park for a short walk. We now have an annual Georgia State Park pass, and hope to use it frequently.

As we drove in we were reminded what was important. 

The small lake which we walked around was very clear and smooth as glass.

Local resident. 

We took the side trail that leads to the Trahlyta falls.

We are looking forward to a wonderful month!

How will you celebrate autumn?

[From Craig]  There are two ways to photograph a waterfall.  You can use a really slow shutter speed, to get a "big fluffy white stream" look.  Or you can use a really fast shutter speed, to try for "each little droplet in its place".  I mostly use the latter approach.  The image above was shot at 1/2000th of a second.

A great Hike

I guess if you stay in a place long enough, and refuse to give up, you will eventually find the great hike you have been looking for.  That's what happened on Monday.

We've had some nice walks during our stay here, but none have really been great.  Some were just too short, some had boring views,  and some have been too hot or too hard and we turned back.

The weather forecast for Monday promised cooler temperatures than the weekend before it, with highs in the mid 70's. So we checked AllTrails National Geographic and found a hike that had good reviews and sounded like one we would enjoy.

The Santa Margarita River Trail is about 45 minutes away.  Although I skipped water aerobics so we could get an earlier start, it was still almost ten before we left the Alfa. Craig had printed the trail map, but not the address or directions to get there. His phone navigator did not recognize the trail name, but we were able to get pointed in the right direction by telling it the name of the road we were aiming for.  We ended up taking a longer route, but the drive was very pretty.  Not much traffic, and no appointment time to meet! The important thing is we got there.

I don't mind rough trails, or trails that have sections with significant uphills, but I don't do well in the heat or on trails that are completely shadeless. 

This trail turned out to be a good mix of shaded forest trail overlooking the river, with some challenging rock scrambles, a few places where we had to climb uphill through the chaparral, 

and some shadeless traverses across the rock strewn hillside high above the river.  

Although the sun felt hot at times when we were out of the trees, the air never really did because there was a cool breeze. 

Walking the high trail gave us a close look at Southern California hills that are burned over by wildfires every few years.  This area probably burned sometime in the last ten years. There were many small bare, blackened trees among the new growth of manzanita and chamise.

 Speaking of plants, does anyone know what this stuff is?

We have seen it on weeds along the roads. It is very thin and covers the host plant. 




On the tops of the hills there were very large homes, and you could see the generous green lawns defensible space around them. The views were amazing.

As usual we stopped for a little lunch about half way thru our hike.

As we sat on a boulder high above the river valley, I asked Craig if in his younger years he had imagined himself eating sandwiches with his old wife in the foothills of a Southern California mountain range.  I know, when I was in my twenties, I thought that 67 was far too old to be doing much more than sitting in front of a TV watching soap operas like my mother did.

In addition to the usual lizards running everywhere, we saw a few other critters on this hike.

We came upon this guy on the soft sandy trail near the river. He must have heard us coming because he was all tucked in and going nowhere. We could see his track running quite a few yards down the path to a place were he had come up from the river's edge.  We of course left him alone, other than getting down to his level to get this picture. I looked for him on the way back. He was long gone on turtle business.

We also saw a bobcat on the trail ahead of us in the chaparral, but he vanished before we could get a picture.  We also noted a wonderful abundance of bird song in the wooded areas.  I always find it a bit disturbing when we walk in forests and don't hear a peep or a chirp from the birds.  Maybe it was because it is springtime and all the birds are looking for love!

On the way down we noticed something we had missed going up. This wrecked car shell was behind a tree on the side of the river. We had noticed other debris caught in the trees four to six feet above the water line. We realized this was from past high waters. Since there was no road anywhere near this car, we have to assume it had been carried here by a flood.

Craig has the Map My Hike app on his phone. 

We have been using it to see where we are. The reviews of this hike mentioned the trail was not well marked. Although we did not have any problems, it was interesting to compare our route as shown on the phone with the trail map we had printed before we left home. The app shows the red line as you go. The above image is a screen shot of our completed route.

We went 6.3 miles, with a 200 foot elevation change, averaging about two miles per hour.  

We were both quite happy to see the parking lot where we started, and enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day, even if we were both very tired.  

One of the nice things about RVing is that after a hike like this we could go back to our own home, shower, drink margaritas in our jammies and not have to find a restaurant for dinner.

Life is good!