Balloon Fiesta | Jimbo's Journeys

Cold day

It was very windy on Friday, but it calmed down enough for the balloons to make their ascent on the opening day of the 2013 Balloon Fiesta. However the wind was on again off again and many of them did not travel very far. I got a pic of the captain waving at us.

This is my 3rd Balloon Fiesta and it gets better every year. I missed last year because I had camp hosted in central Oregon and decided I didn’t want to travel 1,300 miles from there to the BF and then another 1,000 miles to Fernley, NV to work at Amazon.

Sometimes the wind was very still as you can see in this next pic of Roger’s windsock.

This caused many balloons to land prematurely.

I have not seen the hummingbird balloon before and I was able to get this pic of it drinking out of another balloon. HA!

I also got a great pic looking almost straight up into this balloon.

That’s it for now. We had a hot dog dinner tonight with lots of side dishes. Very yummy and lots to eat.

Back on Millenicom

I was a BAD BOY and got my hand slapped by Millenicom for going over my allotted limit. My friend Ken Fears of These are the Voyages fame told me about an app for my Mac called Net Monitor which I have installed. It will help me stay out of hot water with Millenicom.

Abiquiu Lake

Many of us met up at Abiquiu Lake and got in the Happy Hour routine. Roger even cooked ribs for our evening meal on his Traeger oven. They cooked all day and were they ever yummy.

Sandia Casino Parking

Then it was off to the Sandia Casino just north of the Balloon Fiesta. We stayed there two nights . We were all able to park close to each other.

Off to the Balloon Fiesta grounds

Then on the 1st we headed to the Balloon Fiesta grounds. John and Linda went ahead along with Terry and Karen and Roger to get our assigned spots and set up. Then we all followed. It is nice being set up for 13 days without having to move. There are no hookups, but many of us have solar panels to provide our electricity. The honey wagon will also come by and for a measly $25 (HA!) you can have your black and grey tanks emptied. You can also spend the same getting water, but several of us have 6 gallon water containers that we can haul back and forth.

Only a few balloons have gone up and the official starting date is Sat the 5th. It is always an exciting time when all the balloons go up. In the meantime here are a few pics of our group at Happy Hour.