Out and about in the wilderness of Life

Well this was the last day of the feista and we got rained out. Mixed blessing since we got almost no sleep last night and can now nap before hitting the road.
Over all it was a great time and I just love the Balloon Fiesta. And helping to crew this year was a bonus. Always good to see all my long distance friends too.

After a nice long flight they landed on the other side of the Rio Grand from us. Vicky landed just next to the river, a pretty good place…but behind a fence. Luckily we had a nice group of locals that came out to help us get everything out to the road and the trailer.

Well we took off this morning. Vicky and Judy went up and had a great flight. The rest of us all jumped in the truck and went after them.

Wow…what a perfect morning. Great weather, just fall crisp with clear skys. This mornings dawn patrol was almost crowded with all the balloons.
Looks like we will be flying today, second wave. Can’t wait!

We didn’t quite make it in time for the evening glow tonight, traffic was quite bad. We did get there perfectly for the fireworks though.
Me, Jenny, Steve, Lorii, Nick and Ayngela really enjoyed the show.

Lucky me…lunch with the girls. Jenny, Vicki, Lorii, Ayngela, and Judy joi=
n me for a nice lunch at Gardu=F1o’s.

Well we aren’t flying this morning due to a flat tire on the truck. We will take another run at it tomorrow AM. We did get a chance to watch some of the special shape balloons go up.

So this is my first morning at the Fiesta. The clouds are sitting at 2000′ so its a limited flying day.
The dawn patrol went up fine while we were at the pilot briefing. After that the Wells Fargo balloons went up with the American flag and the national anthem. Then the tourist balloons went up.
We are waiting on the special shapes and then to decide if we will fly and where to take off from.

So this evening consisted of a nice Italian dinner with my pal Fish. He used to work with me back in VA but has been here in ABQ for about 5 months now. It was a nice evening but all to short. He is heading to the Grand Canyon in the morning so this was the only time we had to chat.

Well our first morning for the balloon fiesta was a bust. I woke up at 4am and found it windy (30mph +) and rainy. I talked to Vicky, my ballooning friend and decided that me and Jenny would stay in since it was likely that the AM events would be cancelled. Later we found out that to be true.
So we will do the glow this afternoon but otherwise will just mess around ABQ. This evening we get to see Fish, which I am looking forward to.