Fenton Lake State Park, Jemez Mountains and Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

October 1 we stopped at Aztez, NM.  We knew that the RV park there was adequate.  We did not do much other than spend the night as we had visited the ruins and the river last year.

Next day, we decided to go to the Jemez Mountains.  There was a state park up the mountain past Jemez Springs.  The road was quite steep and curvy.  The transmission began to heat by the time we reached the summit.  There were only 5 sites with hook-ups, but we were fortunate to be early and getting a site was no problem.  Getting to it was not easy over a rutted road, but we managed.

The lake was small, but well fished.  We enjoyed a relaxing three days.
Jim talked with the camp host quite a lot.  He tried to sell him on the Wally Byam International Caravan Club since he had a square stream.  I asked him if he told him about courtesy parking--which triggered Jim to look in the book for parking around Albuquerque. When he drove down the mountain to get to a phone connection, he found that he had a missed call from Colin.  Seems Mike had seen a facebook post I had made from Jemez Pueblo.  Colin said they were on the way to the Balloon Festival in Albuquerque.  Why didn't we join them?
We got very lucky with courtesy parking.  The son of the man at whose home it was, just happened to have his (deceased)dad's phone and answered it.  We were invited to park as long as we needed. 

We connected with Colin and Mike on Friday night and got a "Toad" pass from them.  We got up at 4:30 on Saturday and very, very slowly made our way through the traffic to the site.  We missed our crucial turn and ended up way across the field.  We finally got frustrated and parked and walked to the balloon field.  Of course, it was pitch dark.  We walked around and around, but noted that nothing seemed to be happening other than people, lots and lots of people meandering around.  No one was unloading either balloons or gondolas.  Not a good sign.  Finally, just as the sun began to lighten the horizon, it was announced that the wind was too strong.  No balloons would fly on Saturday.  Darn!  We went by where the guys were parked just to see where we made our error.  We gave up for the day and went back to our spot about 5 miles away. 
We once again set the alarm for 4 a.m., but when I awakened at 2, I told Jim to turn off the alarm.  I just couldn't stand the thought of being in all that traffic again.  Sooooo, that's how we came to miss the "mass ascension".  My bad!  We did see a few balloons in the air from our location.  Sunday evening though, we went over to the field and were treated to a wonderful bison burger dinner before we headed down to the field for the "balloon glow" and fireworks.  It was great!

Watching the balloons inflate was entertaining.  There were soooo many to see!

I located a trio of "B's".

and found one guy to be avoided......

It was interesting to be surrounded by so many, many giant balloons.
As darkness fell, the balloons were lighted by the flames.  It was pretty special.

Then, after the excitement of all these glowing balloons, there were fireworks.  Not bad for an evening's entertainment.

How does one follow up on that?  This is what we did.  Jim cooked a wonderful Dutch Oven dinner for our host's  family.  We enjoyed Steve and Bonnie, their grandson, Beckham, and Steve's brother Murray.  We were a bit delayed in getting dinner on the table, but the company was delightful.  Jim's great dinner was followed by Steve's homemade ice cream.  Yummy.  Thanks again everyone.  You were great!