Rex and Nancy's Travels - "ALL WHO WANDER ARE NOT LOST" - JRR Tolkein

We left Albuquerque Monday morning and headed northwest to Aztec where we visited with Nancy’s uncle Lonnie and Aunt Roylene.   We enjoyed visiting and playing “zilch” a great dice game they taught us a few years ago.    We also had to take a trip to Wines of the San Juan to get some of their great wine - Nancy found a nice wine rack to use at our house. Friday morning we headed to Arizona and arrived home midafternoon.   It is great to be home although the house does look different without the big cactus out front which fell down in a storm in August.  

We all left Chama on Thursday morning and headed to Albuquerque for the Balloon Fiesta.   We are dry camping together on the fiesta grounds.   School buses pick us up right here in the RV park and take us to the front gate for every event.   It is wonderful not to have to fight traffic to get to Fiesta Park. We attended the Thursday evening Special Shapes Glow and fireworks display.    We got to see lots of different special shape balloons but the glow seemed to be a bit disorganized.   The fireworks were great. We got up early Friday morning for the special shapes launch.   We had a great time as we really love all the different balloon shapes. There are lots of new shapes – notice the fire hydrant at top right and the fire truck below.   At the bottom left is part of the red fire chief’s hat.   We wonder how some of these balloons fly. Nancy’s favorite from past trips to the Balloon Fiesta

The days are getting cooler and the nights are getting really cold – it has gotten down to freezing a couple of nights so we had to deal with keeping the water lines from freezing. Our friends from Arizona, Tom & Donna, arrived on the first for a visit and to ride the train.   We were joined by their friend, David, from Maryland.   We had a great ride and the colors were still beautiful although it is getting towards the end of the season. We also took a scenic drive and as Donna is a professional photographer Rex got a couple of photography lessons.   He got a couple of great shots of the train.   This one is of a double header crossing the Chama River directly behind the campground. Here the train is making its way up the Chama Valley towards Cumbres Pass - the colors are still beautiful.