Up Up and Away!

A 50th wedding anniversary should be marked with a significant celebration.  My Mom is not into big parties... what to do?  After 50 years together traveling and having all kinds of adventures, what is left to experience?  How about a hot-air balloon ride over the Rio Grande?  My Dad came up with the idea, and we were excited to help make it happen!

Stephen and I did some research and chose a private balloon ride from World Balloon of Albuquerque with a champagne toast afterward.  My job was to set it all up and then stay with David at the hotel, while Stephen played his role as the chauffeur and photographer. 

Part of the experience is pitching in with the ground crew to set up, and later pack up the balloon.  Dad was very excited about that part!  Stephen had to make sure my folks were at the launch site by 6:30 AM.  The balloon pilot and driver of the chase vehicle were both very nice, professional, and knowledgeable.  We had perfect weather for the day of the ride.  There were several balloons taking off from the same site that morning.

Laying out the ground tarp.

The balloon is taken out and laid on the ground tarp.

Stephen calls this shot "The Ballooner Eclipse."

 At this point, we're switching from Stephen's pictures to Dad's pictures taken from the balloon.  There's Stephen getting ready to ride in the chase vehicle.  He's still taking pictures!

Looking up into the balloon.

Flying low over the Rio Grande.

The pilot made the basket brush the tops of the cottonwood trees in the bosque.  Dad accused him of showing off.

 

Now we're back down on the ground, inside the chase vehicle with Stephen.  Balloons are landing!

After the landing, the pilot lifted the balloon slightly so the driver of the chase vehicle could walk it up to the road for a better place to fold up the balloon. 

The toast!  Happy 50th Anniversary!!!

It rocks to look at rocks with an Earth Science teacher!

My friend Debby and her daughter Leah visited Albuquerque for the first time, taking advantage of the long weekend to get away from the frozen North and soak up some vitamin D.  Debby and I taught at Shaker Jr. High together where we were homeroom buddies for quite a few years.  We liked to get out of the building at lunch time and go for a walk, even in lousy weather, despite the comments of our colleagues implying (or stating outright) that we were crazy.  After I left SJH, we still met frequently for walks at the Saratoga Battlefield, CTK, Greenwich, and Saratoga Springs. 

On Friday I had to teach, so D and L went to the Nuclear Museum and picked me up at school.  I gave them a tour of Hawthorne.

The elementary schools here look very different from those in NY in that there are many buildings on a campus the size of a couple of city blocks.  The kids are outside all day as they travel from portable classrooms to the gym to the cafeteria, etc.  They gather outside in the morning before school and go out for recess and lunch recess year round. 

After our school tour, I showed my guests some of the cool places in Nob Hill and Old Town.  We stopped at the Talin Market, an international grocery in which each aisle represents a different country, the comic book store Astro Zombies (I think I have pretty good geek cred, but I have no idea what most of the stuff in there is all about), the Dia de los Muerta store Masks y Mas, the hat shop, and a bunch of Old Town shops.  Then we met Stephen for dinner at El Patron where Mexican guitarists serenaded us in Spanish while we sampled some New Mexican cuisine.

On Saturday we went to Bandelier National Monument to see the Pueblo cave dwellings.  Here my Earth Science education started.  I learned about tuff and pyroclastics (which I thought were pyroplastics until we discussed it later, much to the amusement of everyone involved).

 After we hiked the main loop and climbed the ladders, we ate our picnic lunch.  It was quite warm by then and we didn't need the jackets we brought.  Bandelier is Northwest of Santa Fe so we were anticipating colder weather and perhaps snow, but there were only a few patches of snow left and the sun was delightful.

On our way back to Albuquerque, we stopped in Santa Fe and visited the Georgia O'Keeffe museum at Leah's request.  She had only seen the skull paintings, and was interested to discover the other subjects Georgia painted.  She and Debby picked out postcards to send to friends and relatives.

On Sunday Stephen took us on what he calls "The Southern Loop" with stops at two of the ruins at the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument.  We visited the Quarai and Abo ruins.  There are some fascinating rock formations at Abo, where contrasting layers have been exposed by water.

 We had a big lunch at a New Mexican diner along the way.  When we got back, there was time for a walk in the Manzano Open Space behind my house.  More rocks!  I wanted to show Debby what I thought was an outcropping of quartz in the midst of the granite.  Along the way we saw a bird we wanted to identify, and a shrub with what I thought were berries and Debby thought were insect galls.  We spent a long time checking out the (possibly) quartz, trying to determine hardness and composition.  Leah was very patient throughout.  She is, after all, the daughter of an earth scientist and has probably spent many hours standing around while Mom looks at rocks.  When we got back to the house, we got out a couple of books and two laptops, made tea, and started researching.  Yes, we are geeks.  The results of our efforts:  Mountain Bluebird, Shrub Live Oak with insect galls, and most likely quartz mixed with feldspar and other impurities.

Monday was our last day together, and we wanted to stay a little closer to home and not spend so much time in the car.  We started at the Biopark, had lunch in Old Town, hiked at the Petroglyphs, and had dinner at El Pinto.

 Debby asked me if the Petroglyphs were in the city.  I tried to describe how you drive through a suburban neighborhood to a parking lot then walk directly into the park, but you have to see it to really get how weird it is.  The trailhead:

 The Petroglyphs:

 The rocks here are again completely different from the ones at Bandelier or in the open space.  I think it's really cool that there are such diverse formations in such relatively close proximity.  The petroglyphs are along a rift volcano, drawn on basalt.  Because there is so little vegetation in the New Mexico desert compared to upstate NY, the rocks are often nicely exposed, just waiting to be analyzed.  The petroglyphs were almost a secondary attraction, although I did enjoy the flute player.

The whole weekend was so much fun.  Even though we went to places I'd been before, visiting with Debby gave me a new perspective on each place.  We have lots more to explore, so I'm hoping they will come back another time!

Scenes From A Walk

I hiked through the open space to Carnuel, down the road a short distance, and back through the open space.  When I got to the place I intended to re-enter the open space, I realized that the dry creek bed wasn't dry, thanks to the recent snow in the mountains.  I was looking for a spot to jump over the creek when I heard someone yell "CEASE FIRE!" and I realized that I was surrounded by teenage boys in camouflage and helmets carrying paint gun rifles.  I politely asked if I could walk through and they said sure. I didn't stop to take pictures. My sneakers got a little muddy crossing the creek, but they soon dried out in the sun. It was a gorgeous 54 degrees on this Jan. 17th.