Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta - Day 7 and 8

I am getting behind again...   yesterday was a beautiful day with a road trip to Santa Fe.  It is a beautiful city but the shopping was not as good as previous areas.  Glad I was almost done. The city only allows Santa Fe style architecture and no buildings taller than the church, that makes it very interesting.  There are many dirt road in old town and that is the way the people want it.  They are almost one lane, windy and dirt, all with beautiful houses!!  

Today is a "free" day and the weather was predicted to be very iffy for balloon flying today. Some new friends, J.O and Fran and us decided we would meet at the shuttle at 6:30 am if the news said that the "special shapes" balloons would fly.  They were calling it a rodeo. Balloons all need wind of less than 10 mph. The early morning news thought they would fly so we made our first trip to the balloon grounds to meet up with thousands of others and to be able to walk among the balloons, really up close and personal.  

There were probably 100 "special shapes" balloons on the ground for about an hour after it was announced that the winds were too strong.  They were so close together "kissing" that you would think they would get tangled but they don't.  When they brought them down it was amazing, all down in about 15 minutes.  We hung around for a while and then headed to the Balloon Museum.  We were in there for about a half hour when we went to walk back to the RV park.  However, the winds had come up and were at least 30 mph so we hurried over to the shuttle and rode it back.  Having gotten up so early we decided to "veg" out for a while only to have the sky turn black from the dust kicked up by the wind and then the rain started.  Like Oregon rain ! ! !   Only lasted a short while but is keeping us inside on our last day here.  Tomorrow is predicted to be a great traveling day, especially since we are going south.  We will leave here early in the morning..  Fantasy Tours is supplying breakfast, so right after that.  There is snow is the northern mountains now!! Albuquerque advertises 360 days of sunshine per year, can believe that now since even with all the rain today, the sun is shining!!