Spruce Pine - Aug 12-20

Spruce Pine in October

On Wednesday, Slade met us at the airport for our return home from Albuquerque.  We spent the night with he and the kids. 

Thursday afternoon when Slade got off work, we headed for the mountains to celebrate Slades birthday and spend a week with the grandchildren.

Friday, we went for a hike to Crabtree Falls on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

• Dad and the kids

Anna tries out Papa's walking sticks and hat



Evan and Slade cross the river the hard way.

Friday evening, we celebrated Slade's birthday in a fine fashion

Saturday, Slade and Evan took off for a father/son event camping. 

We met them in Hickory Sunday afternoon and picked up Evan for a fun week at the mountain house.

We hiked to Linville Falls, one of our regular hikes we take every year.

Mimi and Anna and Evan had fun with lots of crafts.

The leaves peaked this week and were among the best we've ever seen. 

A great week of birthday celebrations and fun with the Grandkids.

We're headed home

Monday and Tuesday, October 9 and 10

We've moved to Kirtland Air Force Base on Monday.  We spent the day cleaning the RV, washing Clothes, packing two boxes of (mostly Clara's) clothes to send back home, and generally getting ready to leave.

Tuesday, we will put the RV in storage and spend Tuesday night at a hotel (which I really don't look forward to).  Wednesday morning to fly back to Raleigh to pick up the Grandkids and go to Spruce Pine for a week, then back to Beaufort.

It's been a great trip.  We've learned a lot. 

One of the main things we've learned is that we think we need to bring our own car the next time.  We can get the RV and car rigged to tow.  Then we have much more flexibility as to when we come, when we leave, and what we can do while traveling.   I had initially thought that renting a car would work, but there is a lot of inconvenience.  Primarily, I hate to be tied down to a schedule and making an airline flight.

We've covered 4095.5 miles since leaving Beaufort, NC.

We have experienced temperatures that range from 105 degrees to the high 30's. We have seen and done some amazing things. We have renewed acquaintances with some great friends from the past and met many wonderful people. We have learned a lot about traveling in an RV (both of us love it, that's the reason we're leaving the RV in Albuquerque). We will be back soon for more exploration of this wonderful country and its incredible beauty. I don't know how many years it will take us to see it all, but until we either get tired of it or get to old to do it, we will continue to explore and experience.

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

Thursday, Oct 6

We are arriving near the end of this journey - The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

We follow the signs and find the largest RV park I've ever seen - supposedly over 2,800 RVs of one sort or another, maybe more.

We're parked about the middle of 1 of 3 RV sites at the festival.  I took this from the roof of our RV.  The view is only a small fraction of the RVs in this one part.

Thursday, the weather was cloudy and windy, so we picked up our rental car and started checking out places to store the RV.  We found what we are satisfied with and will check the RV in next Tuesday.

Thursday evening, we took the shuttle over to the main part of the festivities (about a mile away) and walked around for a while.  It was nothing like I expected.  It resembled a fair more than anything, with all kinds of food and  vendors.

Friday, October 7

Clara went back to the fair and I stayed at the motorhome.  In the last few miles before we got here, something threw a pebble against the front windshield and put a little dent.  Luckily, there is a mobile glass repair vendor here on site and I made arrangements for him to fix it this morning (it was covered by insurance).

This afternoon we went to a huge crafts fair a few miles from here.  It had some of the most original and interesting arts and crafts I've ever seen.

The weather has been rainy both last night and today.  No balloons flying.

Friday night, we crashed at the RV and watched a couple movies.

Saturday, October 8

Today is the day.  The weather is perfect and we were excited to see our first ever dawn patrol and mass ascension. 

We got up well before sunrise and took the shuttle to the main launch field.

It was worth the trip!!!!!

Dawn Patrol

Then the Mass Ascension!!!!

Over 300-400 (we heard that there were 480 balloons registered) balloons of all sizes and shapes took to the air.  All launching within about an hour!

Some of the balloons were "special shape".   They were really crowd pleasers.

One of my favorites. 

The stagecoach got inflated, but for some reason never flew.

The whale eats the balloon

Who says Pigs can't Fly
The crowds were incredible.  Thousands of people got up before sunrise to see this.



Two balloons kissing!


Now I understand what all the hoopla about this festival is all about.  This mornings launch was an incredible spectacle with drama, color, beauty and absurdity. 

This afternoon we rode our bikes to the Balloon Museum and joined a group on a fascinating tour of the place.  It was a great museum.

Saturday night we went back for the "AfterGlow" and fireworks show.  It was beyond incredible.  We took hundreds of pictures - and then Sunday morning, we went back for the "Farewell Mass Ascension". 

I have no idea how many balloons went up in this mornings ascension, but there were a lot more than Saturdays.

There is no way that I could show the incredible spectacle through pictures on the blog - it would never load.

I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we enjoyed being in a position to take them.  The Fiesta is an incredible event and an absolutely perfect way to top off this incredible journey of two months.  And the journey to get here has been the trip of a lifetime. 

We've covered 4095.5 miles since leaving Beaufort, NC. 

To help top off this journey, this afternoon we were driving to Kirtland AFB to check out the RV park where we will stay our final night in the RV on this trip, and suddenly we started seeing jets flying around.  I quickly recognized them as the Air Force Thunderbirds.  They are having an airshow at Kirkland today, and we've been so involved and so busy doing all the great things we've done, we never heard about it.

Bucket List - So Far!

Coronado State Monument

Today we headed toward Albuquerque (how would you like to type that several times each day) with the intent of staying tonight at Kirkland AFB, but on the way I saw a sign for the Coronado State Monument, so decided we had time to stop by.

It turned out that there was a nice RV Park at the monument, so we decided to stay here for the night.

We spent a good part of the day taking a ranger guided tour of the Coronado State Monument.  It was a great follow-up to our trip to the Mesa Verde National Park.  That visit helped us better understand the culture and history of this site.

The Coronado State Monument is the site of the Kuanu Pueblo on the banks of the Rio Grande River, which was settled in 1300 and abandoned toward the end of the 16th century.

The Kuanu ruins were excavated in the 1930's at which time they discover mural in a square kiva (ceremonial meeting place).  We went into the reconstructed Kiva as part of a tour that was conducted by a very informative Park Ranger.

We stayed on the trail!!!

Inside the Kiva, which is mostly underground.

The remains of the pueblo village.  These remains were reconstructed in the 1930's and are rapidly deteriorating because they are made of dirt.

The insides of a pueblo

The remains of the pueblo.

Tomorrow we are off to the Balloon Festival.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Monday, October 3,  2011

This morning we left Taos.  An interesting place.

We took one of the state designated scenic highways toward Santa Fe.  I must say, it is the first time we've been even slightly disappointed in a scenic highway, which we have tried to travel all that are convenient.  It wound around some mountain areas, but generally went through what appeared to be small, very poor communities. 

We did stumble across an interesting business in the middle of nowhere (or at least it seemed like that to us).  It seemed to be an import business for Mexican goods.  It must be a distributor.  I can't imagine many tourists drive to this part of New Mexico.  They had some of everything.

We arrived at Los Campos Campground which is near downtown Santa Fe and set up for the evening.

Tuesday, Oct 4

This morning we took a bus from the campground to the Historic District of downtown Santa Fe, a shopping mecca for anyone looking for handcrafted jewelry and arts.

Clara managed to find some "must have" jewelry.

Shopping in the Native American Market.  An interesting set up.  All the sellers have there wares on a blanket about 6 feet long and all are sitting behind their space.  Only Native Americans allowed in this block and the seller must have created what they sell.

The Native Americans lined up selling their wares.  Clara must have visited and talked to everyone of them at least twice.

Clara found her "must have" hand woven wearable art by Tammy Ferrill - Medvedic.  She weaves all of her wares in her shop, then does the sewing and selling right there.  Happy Birthday Clara!

After we took the bus back to the RV park, it started raining.  It is the VERY first time since we left Beaufort that we've seen this much rain. It has rained quite a lot, which for this area that only gets 10 inches a year must be a big deal.

Taos, New Mexico

Saturday, October 1

We finally left Durango after a week.  Durango is a wonderful place and I'm sure we will return.  Besides being a great place, Chuck and Cheryl made it very special for us.

The drive to Taos is about 4.5 hours, and it's across the high plains and desert.  After having spent time looking at the mountains in Colorado, it's hard to get excited about "just mountains", but it was a pretty drive.  And desolate country!

We arrived late afternoon in Taos, and immediately proceeded to get thoroughly confused.  We ended up winding through some residential areas before finally finding the Visitors Center.  From there we proceeded to their recommended RV park (We had not had Internet service all day, so I had not had a chance to do any planning). 

We went to the recommended site and they were full.  We eventually ended up in a not so desirable park.  We just parked, had a drink and crashed.  It was a long day.

Sunday morning we drove the RV to the Historic District early so as to be able to find a parking spot for it. 

There were three different events going on in the little town and we enjoyed all three.  The "big event" was the Wool Festival, where everything you can imagine about "sheered animals" was for sale.  It was really interesting to watch the actual sheering of sheep.  It was something we don't see in NC.



Before



After



Alpaca

The Arts and Crafts Show was neat, with some unusual (to us) items and where we did buy a couple of items.

Clara with the artist and her new wooden treasure.

The third show was an Art Show, which we briefly visited.

We had a great lunch at a "genuine" Mexican restaurant.  This was our first taste of genuine Mexican food in an atmosphere that was truly Southwestern.

This is our first introduction to the Mexican influence in architecture and culture.