ABQ Friends & More

Our stay in Albuquerque was more than just balloons. We visited with old friends, both RVing and from our w**king days and made new friends. We also visited a nearby national park site to explore and add a stamp to our national parks passport.

Here we are having lunch with Larry and Amy Stone. After not seeing Larry for over 25 years, we stopped to visit with them in '08 when we passed this way. I w**ked with Larry at my first full-time teaching j*b and Nanc and I traveled cross country with him in 1977 when he was returning from Colorado to Pennsylvania. On that trip we briefly visited some of the sites we stopped at during our travels this summer. They are both doing well and Larry is enjoying his first year of retirement. It was great seeing them again and catching up.
Petroglyph National Monument was just down the road from the Balloon Fiesta RV Park so we had to visit. This is an easily accessible site with a few very short walks that get you up close to as many as 24,000 petroglyphs along a 17 mile lava escarpment. Most of the drawings are believed to be between 400 and 700 years old, with some possibly dating back 3000 years. This is a great place where anyone can view these ancient works.

Jim and Nanc, Kaz and Jackie Hada, Marcia and Joe Jones at dinner. When we were in Gillette 07 mates Marcia and Joe expressed interest in going to the balloon fiesta. We put them in contact with Judy and when a spot opened up they jumped at the chance to attend. Kaz and Jackie were our neighbors and while we were setting up I kept thinking we had met before. It finally hit me that we talked to them at Greenbelt National Park outside of DC last fall. The RVing community is a small world and we often meet people we have seen on the road before.

Left are Jan and Chuck Moore who we met at Quartzite two winters ago. They were parked two rigs away. Right are Terry and Vickie Webb who we got to know while crewing together. We are planning to see them all at Q this winter. We also got together with Andy and Diane Hitzel who we also met at Q and saw again this spring at Betty's but I did not get a picture. As we say so often, meeting and seeing friends along the road is one of the best things about our fulltiming lifestyle.

Well, we are in New Mexico (you know Roswell and all that alien stuff) so Nanc could not resist having an out of this world picture taken. She wanted to buy it to put behind the wheel of the CRV when we are towing it but we passed when we thought about how often we would be blowing the thing up. Such a shame, he is soooo cute.

The Boomers thanking Luke and Judy for all their hard work in putting together a great two week event. Here is a link to her blog about the fiesta. Our thanks again to Luke and Judy for a great time.

The Boomers are about more than having a fun time. Here people peruse a few of the items that were to be auctioned off. The auction was to raise money for Escapees CARE (Continuing Assistance for Retiring Escapees). The goal was to raise at least $1500 and this group really outdid themselves and raised the bar for future auctions with a grand total of $2876. It was a great job for a great cause.

Here Terry Webb, Chuck and Jan Moore and Judy St. Croix were very good in the role of auctioneers and encouraging people to raise there bids with the constant reminder of where the money was going. We did make a couple purchases and had a fun time.

We had a great time and have crossed the balloon fiesta and a balloon ride off our bucket list, but we both agree that this is one event we will fit into our future travel plans.