This morning we went over to the International Balloon Museum and checked it out, since I am a veteran hot air balloon rider. It was a really nice building, and there were a couple classes of school children on a field trip. I'm guessing they were first or second graders. We listened to the museum guide talk to the kids for a little while, then wandered on by ourselves.
There was a lot of information about the history of ballooning, and several baskets and gondolas on display.
This next picture is the camera they used on the bottom of the basket.
We would love to come back here in October for the International Balloon Festival. The park itself is very nice, very large.
We finished up there and headed back to the RV to get hooked up and hit the road by 11:30. The wind from yesterday was absent, thankfully, and it was a balmy 64 degrees. We noticed the price of gas had gone up 7 cents since we filled up on Wednesday. That is not a good thing.
We drove back around the southeastern edge of Albuquerque to hook up with the Scenic Byway Highway 14, also known as the Turquoise Trail because of all the mining towns that sprung up through here. This is actually on the backside of the Sandia Peak where we went on the tram ride on Wednesday. Just as we got out of Albuquerque, we came upon an old guy with a team of mules and a wagon with "Jesus Saves" on the side, parked just alongside the highway. Didn't get a picture, because we weren't expecting that right along the road. But that was probably the most scenic sight on this drive. We went through several small towns with shops selling jewelry, art, antiques, etc., but none had any parking so we just kept on driving. We found a lookout pull-off and had lunch in the RV, then headed on into Santa Fe. We are camped just north of Santa Fe at the Hyde Memorial State Park, elevation 8700, temperature in the 50s. We were off the road and hooked up by 3:00 p.m., which was a good thing because there were only 7 spots with electricity, and I think we took the 4th spot. The other three filled up in the next hour. We have no phone signal here, and no signal for the computer, so I'll have to post the next few blogs when we hit a McDonalds.
We found a Brenda rock. But we are not collecting rocks for Brenda this year, so she will have to come get this one herself.
There are lots of aspen forests on this mountain. It would be great to come back in the fall and see these trees when their leaves had turned golden. They are not leafed out yet this spring so they aren't very pretty right now, but will be soon.
We reached an elevation of 10013, and came upon the ski lodge. We could see some of the ski runs and they were still snow-covered, but we didn't see any skiers.
We are going to stay here for a couple of days, do some drives in the mountains, then head on to Taos and Angel Fire. Our neighbor here in the campground is from Angel Fire, so he gave us some good information about where to camp and things to see. We are on the move now, but slowly, very slowly.
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