Bad night, good day!

October 8 – I had a terrible night!  I developed a headache during the night and tossed and turned.  I gave up at 6 but was a little slow heading out to the arena to watch the balloons today.  It was a way more exciting morning than yesterday! 

It was up...

The lighting was different today but we all had lots of photo opportunities.  Larry and Clarissa joined us this morning and Bill was still in bed.  It was all just as amazing as yesterday and several balloons were close to landing in our location.  Most moved on!  Then it was like all H--- broke lose.  A balloon was coming in

It was down!

hot and we could all tell and were running in its direction.  The balloonist yelled for us to grab the basket.  I was taking photos of it all as our guys, Larry, Bruce and Paul were there.  Once the basket was grounded positions changed and even the ladies were helping hold the lines.  It was pretty exciting.

We had barely finished there and anther balloon was heading down at the end of the area and we all hauled butt in their

Our guys helping

direction.  This time I just let my camera hang on my neck and grabbed the basket.  Once we got it down, we changed positions.  I was helping with the balloon itself.  It was all pretty exciting and what a rush!! 

2nd one down

There were several others landing in the arena today.  We had one coming down too fast so they bounced on the roof of the arena and gassed up to go back up and make a softer landing elsewhere.  What a great day we had today!

Time for some breakfast!  We were scheduled to leave at 9 for the Singing Road, but due to all the landings we didn’t get going until 9:45.  Paul drove his car of 4, Bruce drove 4 of us and Mr. Ziegler, from Windermere and his brother-in-law followed them.  Bruce and

Sharon had already been there and offered to drive out and lead us over the road.  There is a section with raised bumps along the right side of the road and they are spaced so if you drive at 45 MPH it plays America The Beautiful.  It’s not very

far and you need the windows open to hear it but it was really cool!

We all stopped at a thrift store and then the Ziegler car went on up the road which is the Turquoise Trail.  The rest of us went to the Sandia Resort and Casino.  They have a nice gift shop with most of the merchandise on sale.  We all did some shopping then went to the Lunch Buffet.  They have a huge variety of food!  No one left even slightly hungry!  There was even soft serve!!!  The bread pudding was awesome!

Bill and I registered for casino cards so he left with everyone and I stayed there to see if I could win him a long sleeve t-shirt using the $10 they put on the card.  You do have to activate it with $1, but it was a bit confusing so I ended up spending $3 but earned enough points to get him the shirt.  Once Bill came back for me I had him have his card reactivated as I thought I knew the pin he chose but “not”!  I played his card but didn’t do anything good!