We arrived in Albuquerque Tuesday afternoon. The scenery as we drove South from Raton was really beautiful, and the area along I-25 was dotted with lots of large yellow bushes. I looked it up and it’s called Chamisa, or “Rubber Rabbitbrush”…say that 10 times fast!

ABQ is a busy place during the Balloon Fiesta and the population almost doubles with all the visitors. I booked our campground last August! We’re staying just a little bit North of the city, in the shadows of the Sandia Mountains which top out at almost 11,000 feet.

For our first full day in ABQ on Wednesday, we went to Old Town. To get there, we followed what was Route 66. Early on, Route 66 ran North-South through ABQ, but was then redirected to an East-West route…so the corner of 4^th and Central is the only place in the country where Route 66 crosses itself! You may remember Bugs Bunny frequently talking about taking a turn in Albuquerque – it’s because of this realignment!

Walking through Old Town was so interesting – the architecture is completely different from anything we’re used to from NY or Chicago. The old adobe buildings have so much charm and character. There was live music in the Old Town Plaza which added to the overall experience. We walked through some of the shops and a wonderful art gallery full of work done by local artisans.

Thursday morning was my first chance to see some balloons – I had done some research to indicate that North Domingo Baca Park was a good place to see the balloons from outside the actual Fiesta site, so I headed out around 7am, as soon as the “green flag” had gone up for the morning launch. It was a fantastic location – and so incredible to stand there and watch hundreds of balloons dot the skies over Albuquerque! They were pretty far away but still worth watching! It got me very excited for our on-field experience!

After that little adventure, Mark and I got in the car and headed about 45 miles Northeast to Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico. What a wonderful little city! It is frequently named one of the best small cities in the country, and we understand why! Our first stop was the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum – I wasn’t able to get tickets online because they were sold out (Santa Fe also benefits from the Balloon Fiesta crowds), but was told that they keep some for same-day, on-site sales – so we were hopeful. Sure enough, we were able to get tickets for noon, which gave us enough time to wander around town and eat lunch beforehand.

The museum was good – but we were both surprised at how few examples they had of the oversized flower paintings that O’Keeffe is most known for. Instead, they had a wide variety of paintings from throughout her career, ranging from abstract to landscapes to flowers. It was different from what I expected, but I’m really glad we were able to visit.

The Santa Fe Plaza is the heart of the old part of town, and is full of fabulous architecture. We visited two more churches – they’re so different from the churches we’ve visited in the past. We also walked through their State Capitol building, known as the “roundhouse”. It is the only round capitol building in the country!

In the heart of Santa Fe there is a marker noting the end of the Santa Fe Trail. Earlier in this trip, in Independence, MO, we were at the start of the trail…so we managed to travel the entire length of the Santa Fe trail!

It was a fantastic day and we both were just so impressed with the overall vibe and incredible amount of art, history, and culture in Santa Fe!

On our way back to ABQ, I checked my email and got disappointing news that one of the highlights of our trip, a tour of the Trinity Site near Alamogordo NM, was canceled due to the government shutdown. I was so afraid this would happen, and sure enough, it did. Ugh. Bummer! They only do these tours once a year, and I booked it as soon as they opened it up for reservations – my Uncle was a scientist on the Manhattan Project and was one of the 425 witnesses to the Trinity test in 1945, so I was really looking forward to visiting the site…now I have some work to do to re-jig the next two weeks of our trip, since there’s no reason to travel to Southern New Mexico with the National Parks closed and the Trinity Tour canceled.

Friday was the big day…we had tickets for the morning session at the 53rd annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. There are two sessions each day for the 9-day festival – one that starts around 5am and another starting around 5pm. My research had convinced me that we should not attempt to drive to the Fiesta – traffic is insane! Fortunately, they have four park & ride lots around the city, and you can just park and catch a bus to the field. The buses have access to some roads that are closed to other traffic, so they don’t get caught up in the congestion. All of this meant that our morning started with a 3:15am alarm so that we could get to the park & ride lot for our 4am shuttle. There were literally hundreds, if not thousands, of people in line for the shuttles when we arrived, and it was probably close to 4:45 by the time we boarded the bus. We entered the Fiesta Park around 5:15am. Patience is definitely the name of the game!

For this session, we decided to buy VIP “Chasers’ Club” tickets which gave us access to a special area with food and dedicated restrooms. The area is adjacent to the field where all the balloons are, so it was quick and easy access to the main attraction. We headed to Chasers’ Club and got our breakfast, and sat, waiting to find out if the balloons would be launching or not. It is, of course, a weather-dependent event, so after spending two hours getting to the park, you still don’t know if you’ll actually see anything. But the forecast was really promising, and we were VERY hopeful it would happen…and around 6:30, we found out it was indeed a green flag! Time to head out to the field! The weather was actually perfect, and it was quite a bit warmer than usual for that time of the morning.

It is such an incredible experience…you can walk freely among the balloons and the gondolas, watch them inflate, talk to the pilots/crew, and really immerse yourself in the whole process. They start with “Dawn Patrol” where a small number of balloons launch; these balloons help all the other pilots see how the winds are moving, etc. so they know what to expect when they go up. And, starting around 7am and lasting for almost two hours, over 500 balloons inflate and launch. That’s right…over 500 balloons! It is the largest ballooning event on Earth, and the most photographed event on Earth (which is why Kodak was the title sponsor for 10 years!). I took over 500 photos in a couple of hours…everywhere I turned, there was something to take a picture of…so many brightly colored balloons on the ground and in the sky. It was really difficult to narrow it down to just a few photos to share, but I hope you’ll enjoy this sampling…

Friday featured “special shapes”, and it was so fun to see the huge variety of shapes and characters on display!

And a few videos from our morning at Balloon Fiesta…

The crazy thing about all of this is that it’s over shortly after 9am…but we’d already been up for six hours so it felt like it should be much later in the day. We returned to the Park & Ride lot and got ourselves back to the campground for a nice nap so we could make it through the rest of the day!

Friday afternoon, I met up with a friend from high school who has lived in ABQ for 12 years. We had a great time catching up and he gave me some good tips on other places to visit during our time in the city.

Saturday morning was filled with phone calls and time online to cancel, change, or book campground reservations for the rest of our trip…our trip back East will be much more straightforward now since we don’t need to head to Southern New Mexico and then back North again.

Saturday afternoon, we headed to the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in Albuquerque. The museum is a Smithsonian affiliate, and covers the past, present, and future of nuclear science. It was interesting and informative…and made me a little more disappointed about not being able to visit the Trinity site. Ugh.

From there, we decided to drive towards the Sandia Mountains to get a closer view. We drove through a beautiful neighborhood – clearly, the wealthy in ABQ all want to be near the mountains – and enjoyed some really nice views!

We started the day on Sunday with a trip to the Coronado Historic Site. It was in this area along the Rio Grande River that Coronado arrived in 1540, looking for treasures. Instead, he found native farmers who he called Pueblo Indians. It’s an archaeological site where over 1,000 Pueblo rooms have been unearthed over the years. Perhaps the greatest discovery was an ancient Kiva (underground ceremonial gathering space) with 17 layers of painted murals, some of which have been preserved. Unfortunately, the mural display room was being restored and we weren’t able to see them, but we were able to go into the reconstructed Kiva (via two ladders) and see the re-created murals on the walls. Photos weren’t allowed, as the images are sacred to the Pueblo, but it was just incredible to see and learn the history from our docent.

Our afternoon adventure was to Petroglyph National Monument. They’re part of the National Park Service, but thanks to a donation, they were able to open for this weekend (because of the large number of people in town for the balloons!). We are so glad they were open and we were able to visit – what a cool place! It all started with volcanoes hundreds of thousands of years ago, which left basalt that fractured and fell. On those fallen boulders, indigenous people carved petroglyphs. Archeologists believe the petroglyphs were carved between 1000 BC and 1700 AD! Thankfully, an effort was made to save them as housing and highways came dangerously close to the area. We did portions of three different trails, climbing through the boulders to get a better view of the hundreds of petroglyphs. Fascinating and an amazing history lesson!

Monday was a pretty quiet day. We did venture to the nearby Sandia Casino in the afternoon and we each managed to get about an hour’s worth of entertainment for $20 on the video poker machines!

After a trip to the laundromat in the morning, we decided to spend the afternoon at the Balloon Museum. We purposely waited until after the Fiesta, since it was undoubtedly extra busy last week with all the balloon enthusiasts in town. It was a really interesting overview of the history of hot air balloons, the Fiesta, and the competition aspects of ballooning.

New Mexico’s slogan is ‘Land of Enchantment’ and it is pretty enchanting! Our time here is wrapping up, and it’s been an incredibly memorable trip!