In which it snows and ballooning gets checked off on the bucket list (New Mexico part V).

To pick up where the last adventure left off, the hiking party split up with the two older members driving south and the two younger members continuing north. We first stopped off in Santa Fe, where we had a peek at the Old Town Plaza and went to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Man, that woman was simply amazing. She's long gone but I've still got such an awesome crush on her, and have for years. Respect.

It was late by the time we were done with fooding and schmoozing, so we stayed the night in the capital before continuing north to Taos the next day, were we were going to visit a dear friend near the toes of the Rockies. (This friend also happens to be an incredible writer with a wonderful blog and three books under her belt.) There we were warmly welcomed into her sweet abode with a view and spoiled with incredible cuisine -- spicy hot cider, gourmet popcorn, amazing chili, purple cornbread with purple tater soup, divine breakfast quinoa with freshly made almond milk... .. . ahhhhh. And wonderful company around a warm kiva fireplace, of course. (Thank you!)

The sky twisted itself up in all sorts of dramatic ways that night, and was photographed in the process on a very cold and very windy stroll.

The sun rose the next morning behind snow-dusted mountains, spilling silently over the violet valley below. We decided that, in order to best and most comfortably explore those towering land masses, it was necessary to drive the 85-mile Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway. As it turned out, this was a most excellent idea. Golden aspens bursting out of a sparkling white wonderland, burbling streams, picnicking in alpine fields... This, too, is New Mexico? How enchanting!

Unfortunately the car needed to be back in Albuquerque by early evening, and as it couldn't drive itself, we had to cut the adventure short. One quick trip to the heart-thumpening river gorge and it was time for Auf Wiedersehen.

Fortunately we didn't have to wait long for the next adventure, which started early early the next morning. My parents had received a certificate for a private balloon flight (from themselves) for their wedding anniversary and were able to add a couple passengers on at the end. We'd already signed up to fly one morning the week before, but the pilot had decided at the last minute that the weather conditions were not up to par. We had more luck on the second try, hoorah hoorah. Part of the experience is helping to get the balloon set up, which is first rolled out of a van and inflated with industrial fans. Next the pilot uses the burner to pump hot flames (and thus hot air) into the balloon until it rises and the basket can be uprighted. Then we all hop in, and literally before you know it, you're 10, 20 feet off the ground. It's absolutely silent except for the wooshing of the burner from time to time, and as you go fly with the wind, there is no wind, er, blowing on you. This fact plus the burner right above you leads to a pleasantly cozy flying experience.

So, off we went. Rising with the sun over Albuquerque.

I'm always struck at how the city just comes to an abrupt stop and turns into desert, and there was no clearer place to see the difference than here.

Balloon Fiesta had ended a couple days prior, but there were still many other balloonists in the area taking advantage of the beautiful conditions.

Check out those cute little volcanoes on the right! Remember them?

One thing we learned was that dogs are generally extremely annoyed with balloons, one reason being because the burner (or something) lets off a very high pitch not audible to humans, and another being because they're giant unknown objects flying over the dog's home turf and they can't do anything about it. Dogs really did bark at us below throughout the whole flight.

After about an hour in the air, the pilot was hoping to land in a schoolyard. One class of kids at the school was clearly hoping for this as well as they had come outside to wave to us as we approached. But the wind decided otherwise and we ended up landing safely (with one single bump-hop) in the back parking lot of some industrial building, surrounded by semi trucks and barely skimming over an electric fence during the descent. I wasn't too worried as we went down, as the pilot was a very chill and experienced kind of guy. The balloon company van had been following us for the last hour and was soon there to pick us up. As before, we all worked together to deflate the balloon, fold it up, and get the massive thing back into the van in an organized fashion. Check.

I don't really know what else to say, other than it was a really wonderful experience. Almost as wonderful as going to the zoo and seeing baby giraffes. Different wonderful.

The final adventure of the trip (the next day) had to be a sunset jaunt up the tramway to Sandia Peak, because it's Albuquerque and what better way to say farewell to the city than here? Followed by delectable New Mexican cuisine -- red or green?

One more sleep, one more green chili cheese bagel with cream cheese and red pepper jelly, one more snuggle with the three-legged wonder spaniel, and it was time to go. Return to land of Real Life on Planet Germany, in a galaxy far, far away.

(I'm guessing this was somewhere around Chicago.)

I was sad to leave, but not as sad as usual, as I knew I'd be seeing my family again for Thanksgiving in just a few weeks, this time on Planet New England. (With the exception of my Gma, with whom we had had the pleasure of visiting many times while in ABQ. Saying goodbye to her was hard.)
Mostly I was just in awe at the range of things we had experienced and the richness of all the time we'd had there. Gratefulness abounds.

In which there is a lot of pre-dawn fiesta fun (New Mexico part III).

One of my favorite things to do in Albuquerque is get up before sunrise (easy to do while the ol' biological clock is still set 8 hours ahead on German time), hijack a vehicle and drive a short 15ish minutes east to the cute little volcanoes perched on the edge of the valley. They're part of Petroglyph National Monument and, while I have never spotted any petroglyphs on the volcanoes themselves, I very much enjoy frequenting their hiking trails and partaking in their fantastic view over the whole of Albuquerque. 'Course it's technically not open to the public at the crack of dawn, but there's nothing and nobody to keep you from parking in the outer lot and ducking under the gate. It's best to time the trek so that you've reached volcano #1 and scrambled atop it before the light show begins. The colors progress quickly as the sun makes its ascent up the western side of the Sandia range, immediately filling the valley with golden light once it scales the peak, transforming the landscape into a world of glowing shrubbery and sharp contrasts. I very well remember my first volcano sunrise a few years ago when the sun spilled over the mountaintop and coyotes started howling somewhere in the valley below. That was the only time I heard them, and while I always hope they'll howl again at the sunshed moment, I'm also just content to sit on blackened rock formations with a thermos full of hot tea, listening to the wind.

However, there was a special thing about this morning, too, being that it took place in the midst of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. This annual event brings in hot air balloonists from all over the world, and tourists galore. When the weather is good, an average of 500 or so balloons take off at once at the morning Mass Ascension, surrounded by ca. 100,000 spectators spread out over the spacious grounds. The fiesta grounds were pretty far away and I'd forgotten to bring binoculars, so the Mass Ascension looked more like a spectacular plague of locusts from where we sat. Luckily there were some other balloonists who launched closer to our location and looked, well, more ballooney.

The rest of the day was spent in the botanical gardens, wandering around Albuquerque, and probably hiding in the shade with a sweating glass of pink lemonade once it got too hot.

"The Purest Route 66 Motel Surviving" -- surviving... what, exactly?

You have to watch your step for predator plants when walking home along rough roads and acequias.

Though even when you do, you still usually have to devote many minutes to plucking out sharp goathead thorns once you get back. This landscape is not barefoot-friendly.

The next day involved getting up even earlier to go to the Balloon Fiesta, as late risers often miss out on parking lots and have to watch the balloons go up while stuck in traffic. An additional highlight on this particular day was a lunar eclipse, turning the moon an eerie dark red.

We arrived in time for parking and made our way onto the freezing cold fiesta grounds. Fair food delicacies such as corn dogs, cheese curds, breakfast burritos, and "New Mexico's Own Grilled Cheese Donut With Bacon" were already in high demand. Unfortunately the weather was still too shifty to decide the fate of the Mass Ascension, and we would have to wait a couple hours for the sun to rise and warm up the air to see if it would worsen or improve. A few balloons inflated for a short morning glow and dawn patrol, probably just to give the spectators something to cheer about while feeling freezy and queasy from the predawn coffee and cheese curds. A couple balloons took off and were quickly zoomed away by uncomfortably strong winds. The first balloon to launch was the one promoting Wicked, the musical. Maybe that one ended up in Kansas, just to mix things up a bit.

The sun eventually made a cloudy appearance as we walked around the enormous fabric masses of 2D balloons. Pilots make the final decision about whether or not to fly, and many packed up and left as the morning progressed. We listened to one pilot explain the weather situation to whoever wanted to listen, thereby learning some of the official rules of aviation and hearing some unfortunate but after-the-fact-silly stories about pilots who got into trouble in various ways. He had also decided not to fly that day.

As the official ascension was still on hold (yellow flag a-fluttering in the breeze, as opposed to green or red), we wandered around various tents featuring everything from NASA info to chainsaw carving competitions (carving with chainsaws, as opposed to carving chainsaws) until a quick glimpse toward the launching fields yielded a happy sight indeed. I had been wanting to experience this every year since my parents moved to Albuquerque (not to mention all those tantalizing photos and timelapses = srsly, watch that one), and to have finally made it there at the right time from thousands of miles away just to have a little wind cancel the show would have been saddening.

So, green flag = good news! For all the pilots that had left by that point, I was still totally amazed at how many balloons there still were, and how more and more and more and more just kept going up. It was grand to be there in the middle of all the action, and the organization of the whole thing was superb. Bewhistled persons in various black and white striped outfits ran around giving out the OK to launch and clearing out all the spectators from the flight path just before takeoff, and fast. Balloons were going up simultaneously all over the place and, to my knowledge, didn't whack anybody on the head on the way up or collide with any other bloated, fire-breathing beast once airborne. And did I mention how huge they are? But enough geblabber, here are some pictures:
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Dad was particularly excited to see this fractal balloon, remembering it from previous years. Now let's jump ahead a few weeks -- I'm in Hamburg and just threw my coat on over my PJs to mail something at the post office next-door. I'm standing in line looking absentmindedly at the various calendars and notebooks on display, and, hello, suddenly a picture of THIS BALLOON (and others) is grinning at me from the shelf, the cover picture of some sort of celebrate-life-themed calendar. Very much like a small world experience in which someone from a distant realm of your life is standing in front of you, waiting for you to notice them in a 100% unexpected place. If you're not expecting to see them, it might take a while for recognition to sink in, aaand then it's ridiculous when it does. Not that I had some sort of intimate experience with this balloon in my past, but still, it was fun and surprising to see it there in my local post office. In Germany.

Now back in October in New Mexico.

So that was fun. ...In other breaking news: it's snowing! As in, right now, in Germany. The kind that turns everything white and sparkly. Maybe it will stick around for a while, but more likely it will get drizzled into oblivion once the temperature rises back above freezing. But for now, delight!