Ok, ok, maybe it's also the Autumn in New Mexico edition too...
This week Mama took a ride to the ABQ Botanical Garden and dog oh dog did she see some pretty Autumn colors!
As you enter the park they have a beautiful Autumn display!
The leaves are just about at their peak colors....
With lots a beautiful color in every section of the gardens!
Mama saw a big flaming dragon,
Luckily it was a friendly dragon so I didn't need to defend Mama.
Mama was happy to see more reds and orange leaves this year, instead of all yellows
Contrasting colors always make her smile!!
All the lily pads and flowers have been replaced with Autumn reflections....
There were still some roses in bloom though. We are sending this pink rose to all our friends!
Rosy, the Bee-witched doggy here wishing everyone a beautiful weekend full of Fall fun!
Show us your nature! It can be flowers, your current weather, a scene out of your window, or maybe a picture from a vacation, walk or other journey! Any kind of nature picture will do! If you don't see a link below, click HERE to go to our Hoppity Page.
We are finally here with a recap of Mama and Daddy's trip to the
ABQ International Balloon Fiesta. Mama took A LOT of pictures and EVEN MORE
video of this event!
Since we are both very underwhelmed and uninterested with these scary
noisy monsters, we are handing the post over to Mama...
Thanks girls, and I appreciate you loaning me the blog to share my favorite Albuquerque annual event
with everybody!
As some of you know, since we moved to ABQ, I have been in awe of the hot air balloon activity. Every October over 500 Hot Air Balloons from around the world descend on ABQ for the annual International Balloon Fiesta. This year, Ed and I decided to park CeCe in the RV lot for the opening weekend of this event. We parked in the South RV lot from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning, and it ended up being one of our most memorable camping trips of the season!
We had perfect weather for our weekend at the event. We attended 3 sessions, 2 evening and one morning session. We also were treated to one "bonus" morning session.
Sunday was a full day starting with a 3:30 am alarm to get us to the launch field by 4:30am. We spent some time listening to the balloon pilot briefing, and watching the Dawn Patrol take off.
Pictures just don't do the Patrol justice, especially in the early morning light.
Here is a short video of the Dawn Patrol lifting off.
You can also watch it HERE on our You Tube Channel
If there is one thing worth getting up at 3:30am, it is definitely watching the Dawn Patrol as they float into the darkness!
I don't see the big deal....what about you Sunny??
Nope...in my opinion, the only thing worth getting up at 3:30 in the morning is a tasty bunny!!
After the Dawn Patrol took off, there was enough time to grab a cup of coffee and some breakfast before the "Mass Ascension". If you have never seen over 500 balloons taking off in waves, I recommend you get to ABQ next year to watch!
To give you a little taste of the ascension action, here is another short video.
Again, you can visit our YouTube channel and watch the video HERE
After the morning session, we had time to head back to CeCe for a little nap before catching the shuttle out to the Evening Session. We had also attended the evening glow on Saturday night. During the evening sessions, a collection of balloons gather on the launch field and inflate but instead of taking off, they show off their colors by "glowing."
In this video, not only can you get a glimpse of the wonder of the glow, but you can also see just how many people were in attendance! There were over 728,000 total in attendance for the Balloon Fiesta this year
One of the many things that make the ABQ International Balloon Fiesta unique is the ability for the Fiesta attendees to get up close and personal with the balloons and crew.
In my final video, I put together a montage of a few of the balloons we had the pleasure of getting close to watch inflate.
The icing on our weekend CeCe cake was the "bonus mass ascension". Monday morning, before packing up to leave, the wind started blowing the balloons right towards our campsite!! All of the pictures you see in this post(with the exception of the girls) were taken within 100 yards of Cece. This includes the teal balloon in the video taking off in the last video. What a beautiful way to end our visit to the ABQ International Balloon Fiesta.
(You might have noticed most of the video footage has been sped up. I wanted to share as much as possible, but realize that you may not want to sit and watch hours of video. I have visions of a full length video for those who want to watch, I'll let you know when I have that put together and on YouTube)
Thanks so much for being patient with all Mama's
balloon obsession stuff. It's always nice making Mama happy...
As you might remember, last weekend we took CeCe out for the final trip of our camping season. We drove about 2 1/2 hours north of Albuquerque to Bloomfield, New Mexico to watch the Solar Eclipse.
We had blue skies and beautiful temperatures for camping!
The trees were full of colors too.
From this deep orange-y red...
...to some vibrant yellows.
Autumn was definitely in full swing!
Let's not forget the real reason we were here though, the 2023 Annular Eclipse! An annular solar eclipse is when the moon passes between the earth and sun, but the moon is too far away to cover the sun completely giving a "ring of fire" effect. We were lucky, and were located in one of the prime spots for viewing the event.
We couldn't be outside for the eclipse, mostly because Sunny likes to bark loud at strangers Mama was afraid we would hurt our eyes.
Mama did point out the weird crescent shadows the eclipse produced through the trees.
Not sure what Mama was trying to do here....but she said there was a big solar telescope someone brought, and she tried to take a picture through the lens. We'll be nice and call this her "Eclipse Art"
Luckily she also had her eclipse glasses and phone. She snapped this picture to show us what the ring of fire really looked like.
Pretty cool, right?
After the eclipse, the pawrents took a ride to see some ruins. We're not sure why they would want to see something that was ruined, but Mama promises to fill us in on exactly what it was soon.
We ended the day with a nice campfire!
We really enjoyed our time in Bloomfield, NM. The weather was pawesome, the eclipse was interesting and there is no time like family time, right?
Let us know what kind of nature you've been seeing in your corner of Blogville!
Show us your nature! It can be flowers, your current weather, a scene out of your window, or maybe a picture from a vacation, walk or other journey! Any kind of nature picture will do! If you don't see a link below, click HERE to go to our Hoppity Page.