The day after the annular eclipse was the last day of the Albuquerque Balloon Festival. So we got up early and got down there by 6AM. We found free parking lots about half a mile north of the Balloon Fiesta Park. Many operators were testing their hot air burners.
Here we got a view of a basket tipped on its side.
Scheduled launch time was 7AM but the P.A. system announced a delay due to wind. We soon saw numerous trucks leaving with their balloon baskets. We chatted with a few of the operators who said they definitely would not be flying.
This was one of the few balloons we saw laid out and the owner said they were just doing a safety check that there was no fabric damage earlier in the week. The reality is that hot air balloons are extremely sensitive to wind. There’s good reason the Albuquerque Balloon Festival last 9 days because they can fly only about half the time. This was the only inflated balloon we saw.
The Zeilers told us about the Meow Wolf immersive art installation so we spent two hours there midday. There are about 70 rooms and I can’t say for sure that we saw all of them. Early on was this mammoth skeleton.
Some rooms had couches to relax.
The interior section rooms both upstairs and downstairs had some resemblance to a real house.
Another kitchen room had a refrigerator where the door led to this hologram figure.
A few places opened up to full building height.
Liz liked this portal.
Some of the portals were less obvious, like El Ice Plant, where the man is exiting at left.
Some of the more enclosed rooms:
One of the mirrored rooms:
Meow Wolf statue in the parking lot:
After a charge stop we went shopping in downtown Albuquerque.
We stayed overnight with Liz’ friends Fred and Lorian. The next morning Fred took us southeast to the Quarai Mission. The pueblo next door started around 1300. From 1627-1632 the Spanish built the mission.
Quarai was abandoned in 1678 due to drought stress and Apache raids. The same drought was a precipitating factor for the Pueblo Revolt at Taos in 1680, which kicked the Spanish out for the next 12 years.
Here we got a view of a basket tipped on its side.
Scheduled launch time was 7AM but the P.A. system announced a delay due to wind. We soon saw numerous trucks leaving with their balloon baskets. We chatted with a few of the operators who said they definitely would not be flying.
This was one of the few balloons we saw laid out and the owner said they were just doing a safety check that there was no fabric damage earlier in the week. The reality is that hot air balloons are extremely sensitive to wind. There’s good reason the Albuquerque Balloon Festival last 9 days because they can fly only about half the time. This was the only inflated balloon we saw.
The Zeilers told us about the Meow Wolf immersive art installation so we spent two hours there midday. There are about 70 rooms and I can’t say for sure that we saw all of them. Early on was this mammoth skeleton.
Some rooms had couches to relax.
The interior section rooms both upstairs and downstairs had some resemblance to a real house.
Another kitchen room had a refrigerator where the door led to this hologram figure.
A few places opened up to full building height.
Liz liked this portal.
Some of the portals were less obvious, like El Ice Plant, where the man is exiting at left.
Some of the more enclosed rooms:
One of the mirrored rooms:
Meow Wolf statue in the parking lot:
After a charge stop we went shopping in downtown Albuquerque.
We stayed overnight with Liz’ friends Fred and Lorian. The next morning Fred took us southeast to the Quarai Mission. The pueblo next door started around 1300. From 1627-1632 the Spanish built the mission.
Quarai was abandoned in 1678 due to drought stress and Apache raids. The same drought was a precipitating factor for the Pueblo Revolt at Taos in 1680, which kicked the Spanish out for the next 12 years.
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