Petrified Forest and Painted Desert

I guess I had better get caught up on the blog as we are getting ready to leave Williams, Az. tomorrow and I haven't completed a blog entry for the Petrified Forest and painted desert that we toured last week.  I probably won't be doing and entry for Williams Az. as we did tour the Grand Canyon and did an entry post than.  What we did do this time was spend more time around Williams.  It is a town of restaurants and route 66 gift shops.  We did take a tour through Bearizona Wildlife Park, it was cool.  Definitely would recommend.

Now back to the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert.

We pretty much spent the day touring the area and enjoying the scenery.  We started out in the Petrified Forest. Pretty amazing how wood can turn to stone.

The Petrified forest than became the Painted Desert.  Of course, as usual, the pictures don't do it justice.  It is definitely worth a days drive to see it.

Tomorrow we have headed out to Page, Az. and Lake Powell for a week.

Here is the link for more pictures.
Petrified and Painted

Bye for now

Winslow Az and the Meteorite

Since these two site seeing opportunities were close together and pretty straight forward I am going to combine them into one blog update, mostly for historical purposes.

We started out in Winslow Az. and I don't think I have to explain the history of that stop.
In case anyone missed it, it is referenced in the Eagles song "Take it easy".

One thing I didn't know the town had has a memorial from 9-11. The first one I have seen in person.
It was nicely done. Not much more to say...We will never forget....

Our next stop was at the Meteor Crater.  Not to much to report....really big hole in the ground....but we can say....been there....done that.....

Bye for now......

El Morro National Monument

Yesterday we took a little road trip through a part of the Zuni Indian reservation to El Morro National Monument.  The landscape through the reservation looks like it did hundreds of years ago.  Basically unchanged except for the occasional house.

New Mexico also has some Fall foliage colors

The Monument was a stopping off place even before the pioneers as it was a water source all year around.

El Morro National Monument

The water run off collects in a pool at the bottom of the rocks, there is no spring feeding the pool.

There are cravings in the rock of people passing through the area and petroglyphs dating back
centuries.  In todays climate they would be referred to as defacing property and tagging.

The rock formations are pretty awesome.

we took a hike around the base of part of the mountain and got up close and personal with the really big rock.

Great day for being outside, the weather was perfect, mid 70's.

I have added more pictures of the area.

Zuni and El Morro album

Hope everyone has a great day!  Life is good!

Albuquerque Tours

Never a dull moment at the Albuquerque Balloon Festival. The balloon events in the morning 7 - 9 am and evening 6 - 9 pm. Adventure Caravans fills in the in between time with motor coach tours in area.
Four tours, Linda previously posted the Tram Tour to Sandia Peak, the other three I took and have posted some pictures:

Tuesday: Old Town Albuquerque (shopping), Turquoise Museum, Pueblo Cultural Center.
Old Town Albuquerque is shopping, eating with a center park that attracs performers and other displays. 

The Turquoise Museum was more a lesson about turquoise which was very interesting. I came away with more appreciation for the gem stone than I had before.
The Pueblo Cultural Center provides the history of the Pueblo Peoples. We were fortunate enough that when we were there some Native Americans were doing ceremonial dances.

 

 

Wednesday: Lunch at El Pinto Restaurant, buffet was excellent. New Mexico Mexican food is different that California Mexican food is some ways, escpecially "chile". What Californian's know as salsa New Mexico knows as "chile", green, red  (milder of the two) or Christmas, both. There are pictures of celebrities that have eaten there hanging on the walls.

 

Next it was off to the Sky City Cultural Center and Acoma Pueblo tour. The Acoma Pueblo is high up on a mesa and is still an active Pueblo with residents.

 

 

The last tour was via Route 66 to Santa Fe including the Turquoise Trail and the "Musical Hwy". We passed thru Madrid where "Wild Hogs" was filmed. While in Santa Fe besides shopping and eating we visited the San Miquel Mission and the Loretto Chapel. The Miraculous Stairway is in the Loretto Chapel. For more information on the stairway I have included a link.

Miraculous Staircase

 

The tours filled the day, balloons and meals began and ended the day. For a "bucket list" adventure we are more than happy and would recommend this Adventure Caravan Rally.

More Pictures of the tours

 



Balloon Night Glow

Well we are coming to the close of the balloon festival.  It has been a awesome experience and something we are glad we did.  We have been here almost nine days and the car hasn't moved.

Adventure Caravans has been real good to us.  Breakfast in the tent every morning, some lunches and most dinners are also included.  They also had four tours that they brought in buses to haul us around Albuquerque and see the sites.  My knee has been acting up some, unfortunately I only went on the tram tour, I did dog watching for the rest.  Robin went on all of them and I will try to twist her arm to post a blog on what she saw and enjoyed.

Tomorrow is the end and we are heading down the road.  Heading west as we need to be in Pahrump, NV by Thanksgiving week.  Our first stop will be Gallop, NM for a few days to catch up on laundry and restock the groceries.  There are a few sites in the area we will also check out.

Quiet day today as it started raining this morning, luckily we got all our patio furniture picked up before it got wet.  A few of the group left yesterday as they were from Florida and wanted to get home with hurricane causing damage there.  A few more left this morning.  We are leaving tomorrow morning along with everyone else, so there will be a mass exit, probably going to be long lines to get out.

Ribeye steak dinner in the tent tonight so we are definitely not going to miss that, since I am such a food hound.

Last night we caught a shuttle and went down to the balloon field and watched the balloons light up at night.  We bought a couple of camp chairs and sat and watched the balloons air up and glow.  Had hot dogs and hot chocolate for dinner.  It gets chilly when the sun goes down.

Here are a couple pictures we took to try and capture last night.  It was pretty cool to see.
It started out with a pretty awesome sunset.

Canon was the first balloon to get inflated and glow.  They are also a sponsor for the festival this year.

This was the biggest balloon...doggy

Here is a link to more pictures...enjoy.....they tried to get they to all light up at the same time but didn't have much success.

Glow pictures

Short little video of one actually lighting up.
lighting of balloon

Definitely looking forward to our next adventure with Adventure Caravans, Alaska, June 7 - August 4, 2017. If it is anything like this one we will not be disappointed.

 Until next time.....

Sandia Peak Tramway Albuquerque, New Mexico

Yesterday was a day trip to take the tram to the top of Sandia Peak. Today Robin went on a tour of Old Town and shopping.....hope we have some gas money left......  I stayed home with Bud and relaxed.  Bum knee and really didn't want to do that much walking.

 Here is a link to the tram history.

Sandia Peak Tramway

The morning started out pretty cloudy so we were worried that we wouldn't see much when you got to the top.  The Balloon take-offs had been cancelled because of the direction of the wind and it was pretty strong.  We had gotten some rain the night before.

When the wind to towards the North the balloons don't like to fly because they end up over the Indian Reservation and the Indians get kind of cranky about it.

We boarded a bus supplied by the Adventure Caravans Rally and headed up the hill to get on the tram into the mountains.  When we arrived the rally had already purchased our tickets so we didn't even have to wait in line.

The ride up was awesome and as always the pictures don't begin to do it justice.

The tram was pretty steady except when we went over the towers.  When we reached the top it was very windy and about 38 degrees.  Brrrrr!  Good thing I brought my jacket.  Once at the top we had reservations at the High Finance Restaurant.  We both had a Coby beef burger.  Yum!!  All paid for by the Rally.  The weather had cleared up and the view was amazing.

We headed back down after lunch and viewing and got back on the bus and headed home.  Got back and relaxed a little before the Rally group dinner.  One thing, we don't have to worry about is getting hungry, they feed us pretty good.

Here is a link to more photos and I am a going to try and link a video that I took (by accident).

Tram photos

Tram video

Video takes a minute to load so be patient.


Hope you enjoy....

First Day at Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

This is going to be a short post but I wanted to get some pictures published. 
We arrived yesterday for a 10 day stay at the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Advertised as being one of the largest in the world.

All the pictures today were taken from the campground and sitting in front of our motorhome.

This morning we got up at 5:am to watch the Dawn Patrol and Morning Glow.  Kind of hard to get any good pictures in the dark. 

After the Morning Glow there was a Mass Ascension.  The balloons started rising at 7am and stopped at about 9am.  There was no way to get them all in one shot or even a dozen shots.  Most of them came right over the campground.. It was amazing!!!!!!

I am attaching a link to the pictures we took this morning.

WARNING....there are lots of them.
(by the time we leave the fiesta some of you will probably be very tired of seeing balloons)

Enjoy
First day Balloon Fiesta