Albuquerque Internationa Balloon Fiesta 10/11/13

Adventure Caravans Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta Rally Day 8
Friday, October 11, 2013

This is the last full day of the Rally and it is a free day for us to do what we want until it is time for the Traditional Farewell Dinner.  The weather was much better this morning and the Special Shapes Mass Ascension was especially great.  There were hundreds of balloons in the air, as you can see in these photos.  This is just a portion of what could be seen as we scanned the sky around us. The balloons come from around the world, for example...

Top Row (L -R) Eddie and Rickenbacker 1926 U. S. Army Air Corps from CA; (the tail of a yellow fish) Gus T.
Guppy from MN; Coco the Clown from MO.
Bottom Row (L -R) Jack (as in the box) from KS; Yellow Car from Germany; Cosmos 1 from TX; American
Rocket from IN

Top (L -R) Hopper T. Frog (green) from UT; Cosmos 1; Basketball from Brazil; Oogy the Friendly Dragon from IN.
Middle Left group - Little Wizard from Brazil; Centr Stage (Wells Fargo) from NM; Triple Clown from Brazil; buddy Beaver from AZ.
Bottom of photo - Miss Daisy from SC; Rocket Boy from Brazil; Old Lady and the Shoe from TX (behind cow leg);
 Airabelle from Canada

Here are some close ups.

Cosmos 1 front view. Note the sun rising
over the earth reflected in his visor.

Scarecrow from Indiana

Farm Chicken from Brazil

Sunday Cruise from NM

Like I said before, we were right where the action was.  Here you can see that we were right near where one of the large balloons landed and the process of deflation.



Arky from OR

Getting ready to deflate.  Note the yellow tarp to protect the
envelope/balloon.  The people with maroon jackets are with
our group.  This is how close we were.

 

Almost down

 

 

Now a small package to go into the chase vehicle



Although the rally is finished after tomorrow's mass ascension, the actual Balloon Fiesta is not finished until Sunday, so we have decided to stay for another day so we can avoid the mass exodus of those who have to travel home so they can be at work on Monday morning.  We did a little packing up and getting ready for dry camping.  Since we were with the Adventure Caravans group, we had water and electricity during the rally, but that will be disconnected tomorrow around noon.  We also had the pumping of our tanks included in our rally fee, so we are set for a few days without hookups.  We also did some shopping to pick up some supplies, while we were in a larger metropolitan area.

The Farewell Dinner was wonderful.  The staff had cooked all day to prepare a delicious grilled steak dinner, with all the trimmings, for over 150 people. 

Ready for dinner inside the tent looking toward the serving
line.  Earl bottom left.

Looking toward the back of the tent.

There were some speeches and lots of conversations with our new found friends and fellow rally participants.  Perhaps we will run into them again on a future Adventure Caravans trip.