#145 Albuquerque’s Balloon Fiesta

In 1972 thirteen balloons ascended as part of the first Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. The Fiesta is now the largest balloon event in the world.  In 2018, 567 balloons from 16 countries were registered to fly, and most of those launched from the 78-acre launch field at the opening session.

I was in Albuquerque for work, but arranged my schedule to fly back a day late so I could attend the opening session of the two week festival.

The weather Saturday morning was perfect.  Although high winds, and showers were predicted for the evening (and indeed forced the cancellation of the evening balloon glow), the morning was crisp and clear and perfect for balloon flying.

My Albuquerque colleagues encouraged me to take advantage of a park and ride which provides a roundtrip bus (in priority traffic lanes) and entry to the park.  It cost about $15 which seems like a pretty good deal.  The bad part of the deal is that hot air balloons like to launch early in the morning.  So, I got up about 4 am.  NOOOOOOOO!

When I got to the park it was still dark and just about 6 am.  Dawn Patrol was just starting.  Dawn Patrol began in 1978 when two California based balloonist developed a position lighting system that allowed them to fly at night.  The Dawn Patrol pilots at Fiesta take off in the dark and fly until it is light enough to see landing sites.  Other balloonists watch the Dawn Patrol and get an early idea of wind speed and direction at various altitudes.  

On Mass Ascension days about a dozen Dawn Patrol balloon do a choreographed inflation and launch set to music.

The Mass Ascension is exactly what it sounds like.  All the participating balloons launch in two waves.  Zebras (wearing black and white uniforms) serve as traffic cops and launch directors making sure the balloons leave the field in an orderly, safe fashion.  And by safe, that also means they corral the observers on the field so they don’t get run over by a balloon or gondola!





I seriously, cannot take a non-derpy picture.

Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta is crazy.  Because of their safety record they allow everyone to be on the field walking amongst the balloons. There are balloons everywhere – in every state of inflation.  And once the Ascension starts, the sky is full of hundreds of balloons.  

I didn’t walk the entire 78-acres, and still felt like it was an overwhelming, crazy amount of balloons.






My advice for attending – get there early, and leave at an off-peak time.  When my bus arrived, there was no line – we just walked right in to the field, and we I left there were only 2 other people on my bus. But by the time I left, the line to get in was winding through a Disneyland ride-like maze, and I heard people saying that the lines to go back to the park and ride were also crazy long.  If I happen to be in Albuquerque during the first couple of weeks of October again, I would definitely go, but I might just try to get tickets to the Chasers Club!  

In New York (New York) – Just You Wait!

Shake Shack

I insisted we try Shake Shack while we were here.  It was a big mistake; big, huge. There were about 500 people crowded into a restaurant meant for 200. The seating was some sort of strategic battle, the food was super marginal, at best, food-borne illness at worst. My Shack Burger was under cooked enough to be concerning, the cheese fries were okay, but nothing I’d recommend, and the vanilla shake was salty.  I’ll never go back.  It the great Steak & Shake, Shake Shack, In n Out, Freddys debate, Shake Shack shouldn’t even make the list.

Ooh, I was so excited!


Nope, nope, nevermind!

Gray’s Papaya

This was around the corner from our hotel and mentioned on my favorite pre-Food-Network food show, A Hot Dog Program.  It was fine. The papaya drink was weird.  You should definitely just go to Rutt’s Hut and get a creamator.

Some Random Corner Pizza Place (like next door to our hotel)

Delicious. Would eat again.

Pret a Manger

Our last day in NYC our flights left late afternoon-ish, we decided to sleep in and then go find some kind of bunch-y something.  There was a Pret around the corner, and I’d grown up reading books where they were mentioned, so I kind of wanted to try one.  It was good, and I wish we had them around these parts. I got some sort of yogurt, apple, cinnamon, granola pret pot and a half chicken and something sandwich.  It was a delicious, light meal and we could sit and chat for a long time and talk about living in NYC.  Which I loved.

And then we headed back to LGA and our vacation was over.  But man, I love NYC and hopefully will go back soon, and if my job stays remote, maybe I’ll Airbnb it for like a month or two next time.

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story (#45 New York City Revisited)

Listen, I love Hamilton.  This is not news. This is a well-known fact. And while we very nearly didn’t make it to theater on time, we did.  (Do you know why?  Because this is not a crisis.  We’ll figure it out.)  And we got there just in time to snap a pic of the marquis, find our seats in the rear mezz, and get settled in.

 

Oh, we also got to listen to a hilarious little talk by the usher telling us a bunch of stuff, but most importantly that there were no bathrooms on that level and “remember the 67 stairs you just climbed to get here?  There are that many down to the bathrooms, and then back up”

Also, in today’s listening of a Hamilcast someone said it’s basically faster to leave the theater and run to the Marriott Marquis to pee during intermission.

Anyhow, toward the end of History Has Its Eyes On You, Cort leaned over and was like – let me out I’m not gonna make it to intermission.  I’ll let her tell the whole story, but she ran down those stairs with ushers pointing the way, ripped a broken heel clean off a boot, and ran back up those stairs for the very end of Yorktown.

Also, I was a little worried about the rear mezz seats, but they turned out to be awesome.  All the seating at that level has at least 1 step between levels, so nobody’s head was blocking my view, and because my seat was so high up in the theater I could see the whole surround, which meant I saw (or at least noticed) a bunch of new stuff about the lighting design, and what was happening on the surround.  


Again, I highly, highly recommend seeing it whenever the opportunity presents.  It was magical in a whole different way, although I’ve now only seen Daniel Breaker as Burr because he moved from the Chicago Company to the Broadway Company in the last year. 

Pour Me Another Brew, Son! Let’s Raise a Couple More to the Revolution! (#27 Historic Downtown NY Revisited)

Fraunces Tavern

Pretty much everywhere else we’d been Cort had poked me and said “there are those girls again”, but I never had any idea who she was taking about except a vague impression of some Japanese girls that were in the direction she pointed at Trinity Church.  







So, we she poked me again, when we walked into the Tavern I was like “Stop poking me! What are you talking about!?”  So, she said that those girls, (not Japanese) right over there had been everywhere we’d been all day long, and then the hostess sat us at the table next to them for lunch.

Cort leaned over and was like, “Hey, so are you following us or are we following you?” And we started chatting and low and behold these two girls are from Utah and one lives in Texas now.  So we had delicious food, and great lunch companions.  (But seriously, don’t poke me.  I hate it.)

After our lunching ladies left we were kind of talking about what else we could see downtown.  The 9/11 Memorial was on the list, but honestly neither of us was particularly invested in going.  We weren’t in the mood for that heavy of a topic and just wanted to keep things light.  

Anyway, we were kind of talking about the Statue of Liberty and Cort mentioned that she’d never done the Staten Island Ferry and would like to.  So, heck yeah, we boarded that ferry.  I think we waited about 30 minutes to board for Staten Island, 25 minutes to get to SI, a quick run around through the station, the return 25 min back to NYC, and it was about time to head back to the hotel and get ready for Hamilton!

Treasury Secretary, Washington’s the President (#27 Historic Downtown NY Revisited)

Next up: Federal Hall (Look, Cort took way better photos than I did, most of the time.  So, I’m liberally borrowing from her.)

The current structure was built in 1842 and served as a U.S. Custom House, a Sub-Treasury, and a public gathering place.  Today, the National Park Service stewards Federal Hall as a memorial dedicated to the inauguration of our first president and the beginnings of the United States.

There is a circular indention in the rotunda floor caused by years and years of sea captains and merchants waiting in line to pay their custom levies.

In 1765, outraged representatives from America’s nine colonies convened here for the Stamp Act Congress. After years of fighting, America won its independence in 1783 and made NYC the first capital and Federal Hall as the seat of its democracy.  Here, the Founding Fathers gathered for the First Federal Congress in 1789 – where they passed the Bill of Rights, created the National Bank and Supreme Court.






The cracks in the marble door frames are the result of seismic shocks caused by the fall of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

The George Washington Statue in front of Federal Hall is in the approximate location where he took the presidential oath of office in 1789.

On April 30, 1789 on the second floor balcony of Federal Hall, the first US Capitol, the newly elected George Washington prepared to take the oath of office.  

Just as my event mantra is “this is not a crisis” since things will always go wrong and they can (almost) always be dealt with – just before the inauguration they discovered that nobody brought a Bible to use while GW swore his allegiance to the Constitution. Oops.  


Luckily, after a frantic, last-minute search a local Masonic Lodge offered theirs.  It was out on loan when we were there, but a piece of the wrought iron railing from that balcony is there, along with the marble slab he stood on.

In 1862, the building once again became one of six U.S. Sub-Treasuries.  At the time, 70 cents of every dollar in federal money came through NYC.  Lower Manhattan held billions of dollars in gold and silver in underground vaults, and by the 1870s the vaults under the main rotunda were overflowing. That’s when the fortified steel and concrete vaults were built.


Mourning rings were very popular in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Martha Washington’s mourning ring is at Federal Hall.