We Made It to Balloon Fiesta With the Boomer

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Albuquerque, New Mexico    High 88 Low 63

It is quite warm here, which is way above average.

We made it to the Balloon Fiesta grounds after a very short 30 minute drive. We are parked in a special area with the other Escapee Boomers. The sites, of course, are boon docking. So far our solar has taken care of our needs, but tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer.

This afternoon we had a happy hour (more like happy three hours) with all the other Boomers. Our pilot was there and we got to meet him and his crew chief, as well as the other members of our crew from the Boomers. The pilot and crew chief answered a lot of questions from the audience.

We thought we might get tomorrow and Friday off, but they want to test their balloon out in the morning. The balloon has to be inspected every year, and the pilot just picked it up today and wants to get everything ready for the actual Balloon Fiesta. He told us that the inspection process always leaves something to be made right, knots in the ropes and so on.

The actual Balloon Fiesta doesn't start until Saturday.

In addition, they want to go to one of the local elementary schools on Friday, and inflate the balloon for the schools kids.

So we will be getting up early both days and help any way we can. On Friday we want to go to the Balloon Museum.  It is supposed to be worth seeing.

We have a few pictures from happy hour, but the internet isn’t that great, so I will wait to put them on another post.

Thanks for visiting.

Ready to Move to Balloon Fiesta

Albuquerque, New Mexico     88 Low 61

We drove from Cortez to The Enchanted Trails RV Park and Trading Post. We again didn’t have any problem with the truck overheating even though it was a warm day. I should mention that it was because of Kevin Read having to change his fan clutch on their motor home that I even thought about the fan clutch on my truck.

We had a much shorter day driving today and got here about 1:30. We are glad to have the air conditioners going and it looks like we might have to run the generator the rest of the week while we are at the Balloon Fiesta.

The Park here is a fairly nice Park. We found a lot of old Campers and cars that were kind of fun to look at. The people in the office told us that they rent them out for nightly travelers. They had one that Cindy said looked like the one she lived in when she was a little girl.

This was towed in by a motor home that is staying in the Park.

 This is the one that Cindy said looked like the one she lived in.

One couple parked near us told me that they are also Boomers and are leaving tomorrow to go to the Fiesta. They are assigned to Kermit the Frog Balloon.

The office of this park has lots of model of old cars and RVs. They also have some rooms with antiques. From what they said, this used to be part of old Route 66.

This was looking through the window of one of the RVs. It had a Kelvinator fridge.

The reasons we are in an RV Park are so we could get filled with water and get our holding tanks emptied before boon docking for 12 days.

We hope to leave fairly early in the morning and have a whole 25 minute drive. It will be nice not to have to spend so long driving.

Thanks for visiting.     

We Are in Colorado

Cortez, Colorado      High 82 Low 46

I changed the fan clutch on the truck. There were some plastic rivets on one of the fan shrouds that I couldn’t get at without pulling the air cleaner housing. Then there were two bolts at the sides of another fan shroud that had to be removed. I finally managed to get them out, but had a lot of trouble getting them to start when I tried to put the shroud back on. The actual clutch wasn’t too bad to change. What should have been an hour project, took me three hours, but I persevered and got the truck back together.

We left Salina at about 9:00 and pulled into Camp Walmart in Cortez at about 4:00. It should have been a four hour drive, but we stopped a lot. There are about a dozen RVs parked here.

One of the stops was in Green River where we bought some melons. I’m not sure what kind they are, but the samples were sure good

The truck stayed fairly cool today in spite of all the hills we had to climb. We could hear the fan kick in and I’m sure it hasn’t been working for a while. We went over a lot worse grades today than going to Salina and the alarms never went off with the exception of the transmission got a little warm going through Moab because it was so hot with lots of start and stop.

Cindy got some pictures of the scenery along the way. She wanted to get some of the eclipse last night, but it was too cloudy until the eclipse was over, so we didn’t get any pictures last night.

We leave here for Albuquerque tomorrow and are staying in an RV Park for one night before we are scheduled to be at the Balloon Festival.

Thanks for visiting.

Headed for Albuquerque

Salina, Utah         High 88 Low 57

We have noticed what looked like thousands of geese heading south for the last few days. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a picture with the sky full of them, but I did manage to get a few.

Yesterday we went to Trader Joe’s in Salt Lake. Afterward we went to a restaurant called the Philadelphian. This was the second time in a couple of weeks. This time we had the fried onion rings. I don’t think I have ever seen so much bread batter before. They were a meal by themselves. 

We finally got on the road at about 10:00 this morning. We wanted to leave Thursday, but the campground couldn't accommodate us. We only had about a three hour drive, so we stopped to visit with Cindy’s Mom on our way south. We were told that the place where she is only expects her to be there a week or maybe two and then she will go home. She seemed to be in good spirits today.

On the way, the truck seemed to get hot a few places that it shouldn’t have and I didn’t remember hearing the fan kick in. So I’m guessing that the fan clutch has quit working properly.

When we got settled in to the Butch Cassidy RV Park at about 2:00, I drove back to town to see if I could get a new fan clutch. The NAPA Auto Parts here didn’t have one for my truck. I tried to get one in Richfield which is only about 15 miles away, but they didn’t have one at any of the Auto Parts stores, so I ended up driving to a NAPA store in Ephriam, which is 40 miles away. I decided I wanted to get it so after an hour and a half, I got back. This one on the Duramax engine looks to be a lot harder to change than the one Kevin talked about changing, but I don’t have a dog house in the way. There are still a lot of shrouds to take off, and this one mounts on the engine with a large nut and not 4 bolts. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.

This evening my daughter, Paula, drove up from Richfield to see us. We decided to go to the local Mexican Restaurant. We all had different things, which were too much food to eat, so we will have left-overs another day.

We will head toward Albuquerque again on Monday. Here is a picture I got of the Balloon we are assigned to that was on the internet.

Thanks for visiting.

The Trip to Albuquerque is On

Riverton, Utah     High 70 Low 46


The weather the last 2 days has been delightful.


My Mother-in-law moved from the hospital to a rehab center that specializes in heart patients. She got moved in last night and we spent some time with her.


We went to see her today and they had her in physical therapy when we got there. She was exercising a little bit. When the therapist asked her to stand, she was able to do it, but was weak. She seems alert enough and is having lots of visitors.


We have decided to leave on our trip to the Balloon Festival and hope everything will be OK. We are scheduled to leave next Saturday and kind of take our time getting to Albuquerque. We are supposed to be there on Wednesday the 30th.


Judy (Cool Judy) sent a list of Balloon crew assignments. We are assigned to a balloon named Slainte, which from the internet means good health from ancient Irish. It sounds like it will be fun, although a lot of work.


The trip to Florida had to be cancelled because Cindy's Mom won't be strong enough for it. They are still hoping later.


Thanks for visiting.

Plans Still Up in The Air

Riverton, Utah     High 68 Low 45


Still a bit chilly for the time of the year. I heard on the TV that temperatures are 15 degrees cooler than normal.


Cindy's Mom was scheduled to move from Intensive Care back to the regular part of the hospital. When the doctor looked at the veins and arteries in her heart, they said that they are so bad that nothing could be done. Cindy said her color looked better, but today when they had her walk a little bit, she got tired really quick. By the way, she is 87 years old, with diabetes.


It has been decided that the trip to Florida will have to wait, so for now we are not doing that. I spent some time this morning cancelling reservations.


Cindy says if her Mom is still in the hospital, we probably won't be going to Albuquerque either. The doctors don't seem to have a very good prognosis for her Mom. We will have to decide whether we are going by the end of next week.


I have spent some time quilting some of Cindy's quilts and have got a few done. I have had a cold and so I haven't been to Provo to see my Mother-in-law. I am feeling better and may go tomorrow or Saturday.


Thanks for visiting.

Jello Plans

Riverton, Utah    High 68 Low 57


Yesterday the rain came down hard for a while. We have forecasts for rain for the next few days, but a least it has cooled down some.


We got an early morning call from Linda, Cindy's sister, telling us that their Mom was in the hospital with a probable heart attack. Right now they are doing tests and don't really know what is going on as the pain comes and goes.


The latest word is that the stint she had put in back in 2002 has failed and could be part of the problem. Cindy just called and told me that there is a lot more wrong with her heart than just the stint and the doctors still are not sure just what is happening.


So at this time, we are not sure whether the trip to Florida is on or not, but probably not. As far as the Balloon Festival, we are still hoping to be able to make it there, but nothing is certain. Cindy did tell me earlier that her Mom said the trip was still on, but of course it all depends on what the doctors find and how long her recovery takes.


Thanks for visiting.

Labor Day Drive

 

Riverton, Utah        High 79 Low 50

The weather has been absolutely wonderful the last few days. Neither too hot during the day or too cool at night.

Today we took a flash drive of our Canada pictures to Cindy’s sister in Orem. She couldn’t believe we had over 1500 pictures. Cindy was going to put them on discs, but found out it would have taken way too many discs, so we got a flash drive instead. Linda asked why so many pictures and Cindy told her there were well over 500 pictures the one day we went to the Bear Preserve.

We have most of our Florida trip planned and reserved. We are supposed to meet Linda and Cindy and Linda’s mom in Albuquerque after the Balloon Festival in October and then head for Florida.  

We had Devon and Penny with us and we decided to drive to Heber City. Of course, while we were there we had to stop at Granny's for shakes. It was a very busy place and the lines got very long after we stopped. Our order came out fairly quick because all we ordered were shakes.

Devon with a small. Good thing we didn't get him a large!

Coming back the traffic was awful, Partly because a lot of people had today off, and partly because of a motorcycle accident in Provo Canyon. We saw a least 5 police cars, but no EMT or ambulance for the motorcyclist, who was laying on his back in the middle of the highway. His motorcycle was tipped over next to him. For about half of the 20 miles or so we drove through the canyon, , about half of it was 10 to 15 miles per hour. 

Tammy picked up Devon before we got home, so Cindy and I decided to go to a Restaurant called the Philadelphian.  We think they have better Philly sandwiches than we got when we were in Philadelphia a few years ago. It doesn’t take much to get us to go there. They also have very good home-style fries. The six inch sandwich gave us enough for another meal. 

The only other thing I did today was to put some repair tape stuff on our large awning. It was showing signs of wear by where it connects at the top and I wanted to get the repair done before it got bad enough to replace the whole cover. It is white like the awning and looks pretty good.

Thanks for visiting.

A Few Reflections

Riverton, Utah       High 91 Low 66

The weather here has been kind of warm lately but it is supposed to get a lot cooler by Sunday.

We have been busy trying to get all the things finished before we leave in three weeks for Albuquerque. We will be staying with the Boomers at the Balloon Fiesta. We have volunteered to help with the balloons. Cindy doesn’t want to ride a balloon, but I would like to, but we have been advised that there are no guarantees.

We had Jim and Sandi stay at our house for three days and probably would have done more with them if Jim’s back had been better. Maybe next time. We did enjoy having them stay with us and hope they feel the same way. Our driveway was a little crowded for them, but they didn’t seem to mind.

After reading Al’s post last night, it seems that they have decided they no longer want two homes. Cindy and I have talked about this very thing, and feel that if we were to buy another place, it would take something away from the RV lifestyle. If we had another place we would feel obligated to go there in the winter, rather than go anywhere we want.

Cindy also doesn’t want to sell our present home. Someday everyone seems to have to hang up the keys. And besides, where would she put all her material. lol Our home is a little large for two of us, but it is one we have built together. Right now with Tammy and the kids living here it gets a lot hectic sometimes, but I guess we are glad the house isn’t vacant when we are gone. And if it gets too bad, we could always leave with the trailer and find somewhere to go.

We have done a lot of traveling for the past three years, and hope to be able to continue for a while. Next summer we would like to spend some time in Oregon and Washington. I know we will go back to Arizona this winter after Christmas.

Sorry I haven’t been blogging much, but with not a lot going on, I didn’t feel like boring you by writing every day.

Thanks for visiting.