Hot Air Ballooning in New Mexico!

In Ocober 2000 we went to Albuquerque New Mexico to compete in the balloon fiesta – sponsored by Kodak and at the time the most photographed event in the world. We went with our friends who owned and flew their own hot air balloon. What a wonderful experience, flying over the plains of Albuquerque with 700 other balloons, some of them special shapes balloons, the stage coach of Wells Fargo, Ben and Jerry’s cow and a pumpkin to name but a few. We had time to fly and compete – in such competitions as dropping a marker from the balloon basket and the nearest marker to the target on the ground won. Also to fly from the launch field to a certain point. On the days we could not fly due to bad weather or in the daytime – best times for hot air ballooning are in early morning or in the early evening so we had free time in the day. We visited nearby Santa Fe, and travelled by cable car to the Sandia Peak – an awesome view over Albuquerque from the Peak at sunset…………. After the 8 days we spent in Albuquerque, we packed the hot air balloon and basket away for shipping back the UK, as we had the rest of our holiday to look forward to. We drove west through the rest of New Mexico to Flagstaff Arizona where we spent two nights in log cabins in the forest and were lulled to sleep at night by the sounds of the local wildlife, Elks and Deer!

On our second day there, Andrew, my husband and I along with our 2 ballooning friends, Stephen and Ben and a close friend Pete Cravenfrom Hebden Bridge who had emigrated to Flagstaff a few years prior, set off at 5am to drive to the South rim of the Grand Canyon 70 miles away. We took a picnic but had Macdonalds for breakfast sitting on the rim – the view was breathtaking! We then set off on our walk to the foot of the Grand Canyon – a 15 mile round trip hike down to the Colorado River – the distance from the rim to the foot of the Canyon is 1 mile. So off we set in the lovely morning sunshine down the switch backs – the man made path made of steps edged in wood, hard work on the knees! We passed the sign that said ‘Do not attempt to walk into and out of the Canyon in a Day, people have died attempting this’! Still we carried on. Got the bottom, ate our picnic and then set off back to the top. After nearly treading on a rattle snake we paddled in the freezing cold water of the Colorado River. We climbed back up the paths, we were overtaken by lots of mules with sensible passengers in the saddle and eventually got back to the top at 8pm – in the dark. What a thoroughly hard day but also very enjoyable, however I am not tempted to try this again, maybe next time, if there is a next time, we will book a room at the hostel in the Canyon bottom!

After a good night’s sleep, we drove west again through Death Valley onto Las Vegas – what a contrast from the previous part of the holiday! We had an action packed 24 hours, where we stayed at the New York New York Hotel, we visited Mandalay Bay Hotel, Luxor Hotel and onto Caesar’s Palace where had a superb evening at the magic dinner show with a difference. Walking was quite tricky on this day due to the walk the day before, I had to walk down stairs backwards to stop the pain in my calves!!