Flying Balloons Today …. 10/07/2012
Posted by Pete | Posted in News | Posted on 07-10-2012
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Saturday’s mass ascension here in Albuquerque did not happen….The weather always has the final say in things…The winds shut us down yesterday….Today, Sunday, just right for balloon flying and we watched on tv as the balloons traveled south and southeast, or in other words, away from our part of town. But that’s ok as we are glad they are flying, giving the folks what they came here to see and do…Fly, ride or watch all the beautiful balloons….oh, and eat all those spicy burritos and other good foods that abound around the balloon park…..Folks are here from all over the world….Welcome to Albuquerque and enjoy your stay……Pete
Wish we were there! It sounds like more fun than analyzing Arkansas drinking water.
Yes, its lots of fun, but Sweetie and I try to be some where else this time of year. This year our plans got messed up and we are here, but we did all our shopping last week so we can stay home. We did go to church Saturday night and the traffic was not real bad tho we had a few more cars than usual.
I bet you wanted to be out of town because you were afraid one of those colorful balloons would fall on the top of your house, demonstrating the old adage “what goes up must come down”. Seriously though, I bet the traffic during this week is really something. I doubt if I could ride my bicycle safely now in the places I did in the late Sixties when Albuquerque only had a population of 300,000 or so. I remember when the I-40/I-25 interchange just north of town was being built when I would ride up and down the unpaved roadbed with absolutely no traffic. This was always on weekends when there was not even any construction traffic around. It was fun and nice. I would ride all the way from the I-40/I25 interchange all the way eastward to Juan Tabo and ride back to Kirtland on Juan Tabo (and Wyoming). Juan Tabo was then unnamed and unpaved. It was fun kicking up “enchantment” all the way. It was lots of fun. There were absolutely no balloons in sight. Only imagined UFO’s! It was a unique time in the history of Albuquerque to have been there; and, most importantly, it was a unique time to be young and able to ride a bike the required distances; and. even more importantly, it was a valuable break riding in the freedom of the blowing “enchantment” from the “fancy”, taxpayer-financed research of killing sheep instead of killing (and being killed) by the Viet Cong in Viet Nam. Wonderful duty! It was a wonderful time in which to serve in the military, when Kirtland AFB was a wide open base, and essentially everyone could come and go as one pleased, when KAFB was more scientific and research oriented than it was military oriented. Of course, 9/11, IUD’s, and the highly paid, all volunteer, professional military changed all of that.
Yes! Those were the days! Those were the days when men were men and women were ladies. Those were the days when we didn’t have to worry about balloons falling from the sky. We didn’t have to worry about our ambassador being murdered by thugs (or terrorists) in the Middle East and a President withdrawing the necessary security and blaming the whole thing on some two-bit, poorly-done movie that almost no one has ever seen. Those were the days when almost everyone was proud of the USA, and even our adversaries had respect for us. Those were the days when almost everyone, including our adversaries, wanted to come to the USA and many did. Those were the days when most of us were poor, but proud, of our heritage, our destiny, and of just having been born in the good ole USA. Those were the days when most of us, although poor, were proud of serving the USA in our country’s military. Yes! Those were the days! Yes! Those were the days, not of the Greatest Generation, but of a generation close enough to the Greatest to have gleams of glory in our eyes of a destiny that can only be made in Heaven and realized most easily in the good ole USA.
Getting away is good because the town is so busy. Albuquerque is always nice. Little hot a very few days in the summer but no humidity and a little cold a few days in the winter but with no humidity. And, of course, the price for no humidity is dryness and for that I would take a few days of high humidity. October is a good month to visit many places so our leaving then is a combination of several things. Pete