balloons galore

This is St. Francis Church in Santa Fe.

The porch where the local Indians sell their ware.  All of it is beautiful, but I didn't buy anything this time.

They have a new shopping area and an excursion train near old town Santa Fe.

This is some of the Special Shapes on Thursday morning. We're at the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque. They couldn't fly that day because the wind was blowing too hard.  At least we got to see the balloons.

The balloons are first blown up with a huge fan and then they heat the air inside to get the envelope to stand erect. 

One of the cuter shapes.

This one's called "Little Pirate." He took forever to stand up.

Pete the Parrot Pirate

It is great because we can walk down amid the baskets and get startled by the propane burners coming on.

This was Friday morning.  the shapes got to fly as well as the other balloons.  The sky was alive with color. I for one couldn't stop smiling.  It's great!

The cow is the largest shape; it  almost covers a football field before it's blown up.  The Wells Fargo stagecoach is almost as big.

She, Airabelle, doesn't fly for very long because it takes a lot of propane to heat the balloon.

Wells Fargo doesn't go very far either.  It came down on the lawn in back of the balloon museum right next to our groups campsite.

The mushroom didn't go up at all that day.  But almost everyone else did

The Hummingbird is a new shape this year.

We are crossing the bridge over a drainage ditch toward our campsite.  Beautiful isn't it?  Pictures just doesn't do this justice.

The clown landed two rows behind us.

The balloons hung around for a long time.  The wind speed was almost nonexistent.  I sat in the co-pilots chair to watch and woke up about 30 minutes later and they were all landed. 

Friday night they had a Glowdeo.  The balloons are lit up by the flames in the dark.  It's quite lovely.

It is hard to get a photo of several balloons lit up all at once, but I sure had fun trying.  You can see Angry Bird ( another new shape.)

 

This is what it looks like from up above the field through our windshield.

This morning was the last mass ascension. At least 500 balloons were up in the air at one time. There is a wall of balloon tops all getting ready to take off.

A bunch of people walk the basket to a clearing and a ref, called a zebra, gives the signal to go up.

Look at the "wall" behind this basket.

Up up and away.

These are the kissing bees.  They have been at the Fiesta for years.

 

We are on the other side of Albuquerque tonight.  We are worn out.  The balloon field is one mile long and we must have walked it 8 or 10 time in the four days we were there.  Tomorrow we plan on doing some sight seeing.  Maybe Old Town. 

We'll see you all in a week or so. 

Love, Mom and Dad

Last Hurrah

We stayed four nights in Sacramento.  One of the day we went wine tasting.  We drove for over an hour and ran into traffic.  Roads were being worked on.  Highway 12 is still two lanes most of the way.  The next day we went to old town and the railroad museum.  This is the first exhibit.  The train is still owned by the Stanford Family.

The museum looks a lot like I remember from 20 or 30 years ago.  The best part is there are several volunteers that used to work on the railroads.  They are a wealth of knowledge.

This train has been restored to look as fancy as it did when it was new.  1850's

This is the huge kitchen of a dining car.  Maybe Daddy and Mother ate from a kitchen like this.

There is at least three different table settings from Santa Fe.  This was my favorite.

Looks like baggage got better treatment than at an airport I think.

This is a chandelier from a waiting room.

A clock from Santa Fe.

 

 

We are in Visalia today.  We spent the day in Sequoia and King's Canyon National Park.  I've never seen so many people.  We heard French, German, and Spanish. The weather was delightful.  It was in the 70's.  We got back down to the valley and it was in the 90's.

The trees are huge.

We walked around a meadow to see the giants.

See how small your dad looks.

The meadow is too wet so the trees grow around the edges. 

The roots are taller than your dad.  It fell several years ago.

The big tree shelters the baby trees

It's hard to kill one of these.  The bark is about two feet deep.

New trees grow on fallen trees.

The "footprint" of a sequoia.

Then we walked down to General Sherman.  We went down 212 ft. for about a half a mile.

There it is.  It is the largest tree in the world.

We had to walk back up the trail at 7000 ft.

Up all those steps and ramps.  Luckily there was several benches to sit on to catch my breath.  I got my heart rate up very well.

 

We start home in the morning.  200 miles tomorrow  and then on home Thursday.  See you all soon.  Love, Mom and Dad

Nevada

When we were in Elko we stopped by the visitor's center to see what there was to see and do.  This is it.  The grounds are full of really old buildings from a 100 years ago.  It was pretty neat.

We found out about another westward trail center just outside of town.  It was very well done. 

The California Trail was a long one.  The thing was that all of the adversity made you see the "elephant." This is the trail the Donner party took.  The big mistake was they followed the Hasting cutoff and went almost 150 miles out of their way and got stuck up in the Sierra's in the middle of winter.

Inside the museum were several dioramas depicting life on the trail.

The pioneers traded with the Indians.

And of course gold fever was a big part of the trail.

This statue outside the building shows how women carried their babies.

The museum itself.

I remember seeing markers like this as a kid along side of roads.  This one is for the California Trail.

We went on in to Reno.  Not much to do unless you like casinos.  But your dad found the Harrah's Auto Museum.  Nice place, we spent almost four hours in there.

This electric car was owned by Andy Griffin.

There is a cute car that one can have their picture made sitting in it.  Your dad won.

This is one of the first RV's.  You were supposedly to be able  to put it on you Model T.  It could sleep four.

This one was called a depot wagon.  It went from the depot to a hotel.  After depot's names were changed to stations it became a station wagon.  I learned something new.  Doesn't that look like a precursor to the "Woody?"

A Rolls Royce all in copper.  Wow!!!

A concept car.  I can't figure out why it never made it to market.  LOL

I think this Mercury is like the car we came to California in.  It's a 39.  Maybe ours was a 49??? I don't think there was much difference.

An Austin.  I wanted an Austin Healy.  But not this old.

A silver Merceties Benz.  Baad spelling yet again.

This car drove from New York to Paris in 1909.  It went 22,000 miles by road and boat.

Right outside the museum is a river walk.  The Truckee runs through Reno.

 

We are in Sacramento right now.  We'll go wine tasting tomorrow and then the next day we'll go into Old Town.  We'll be busy for a while. 

 

That's all for tonight.  See you all soon.  Love, Mom and Dad