Obligatory Balloon Fiesta Photos

It's been half a year since the last blog post and what has happened that finally makes me post a new blog? Balloon Fiesta. This event in my town claims to be the most photographed event in the world. I am no photographer, but I happen to have a camera, so here's some enjoyable photos from Saturday.

The Fiesta introduced a bicycle valet service last year to encourage people to ride there rather than drive. So, we were on our bikes at 5:40 am for an 8.5-mile ride to the park to arrive before sunrise. I have no pictures of that, but it explains the helmet-hair and bright yellow jacket.

 

Already a couple of hundred balloons in the air as the sun rises over the Sandias.

More balloons are just getting ready to rise.

The view from the field. There are something like 100,000 people and 500 balloons.

 Troy's favorite balloon: Spider Pig

Not sure if Troy is getting stepped on or getting his head licked by "Sam".

My favorite balloon this year: Sam, an upside-down elephant from Brazil.

The Shark and astronaut were new this year too.

This is February

Winter is my second-favorite season. Fall is indisputably the best of all seasons in New Mexico. However, not everybody agrees about winter being the second-best season. I keep hearing complaints this month about the cold weather. Personally, I have not yet decided yet whether spring or summer is the worst time of year around here - both have their problems, but we'll get to that when the time comes. For now, why I love winter…

February 13, on the 10k Trail in the Sandias

As far as I'm concerned, this is exactly what February should look like. And the weather has been quite cooperative this year. This is the trail that inspired me to buy backcountry skis as it often pitches skiers downhill, around curves with trees everywhere. With a few inches of fresh powder on top, it is really a lot of fun. We usually just ski north along the trail for 45 minutes or an hour, then turn around and come back in about the same time. Then head home in time for lunch.

February 18 with WRW at the end of the Jemez Dam Road

Of course, this is also February. What you see in this photo tells me how you'd feel about winter in New Mexico. Do you see a perfect blue sky and dry pavement? Or do you see a bunch of cyclists bundled up in jackets and long pants for a cold winter ride?

Winter Trails

Several weeks ago a good friend got an iPhone. She told me that she realized that she'd been denying herself this device for a long time because it seemed extravagant. She wanted me to get an iPhone too because she knew that I secretly wanted one. I thought about it really hard, and realized what I had really wanted for years but hadn't allowed myself to buy… a pair of backcountry skis.

Yes, I have telemark skis and cross-country skis, so I can handle the steep ups and downs as well as flat snow. The problem is that snow in New Mexico tends to accumulate on mountains, not in the flats. The cross-country skis are not terribly useful. Backcountry skis have a similar (but beefier) boot and binding as cross-country, but the skis themselves have metal edges (like downhill skis) are somewhat shorter and more parabolic. With these I can ski most of the same trails that I would hike in other seasons.

While shopping for backcountry skis, I discovered that the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Works has an excellent website with descriptions of places around Santa Fe for skiing, biking, hiking, climbing, kayaking, etc. Unfortunately, they went out of business last summer but their website is still live for now. Their idea of backcountry skiing is a bit more extreme than mine. Their nice website has inspired me to share here some descriptions of winter trails around Albuquerque that I enjoy. I started with the Ellis and North Crest Trail post. You'll see some more soon.

In the meantime, enjoy some photos of rare cross-country skiing in Albuquerque (from the great snowstorm of 2007).

The foothills 365 trail (January 2007).

 

The Bosque at Central Avenue with the Bio Park in the background (January 2007).

Luminarias

The Los Altos neighborhood started a Christmas Eve tradition of setting up luminarias 60 years ago. When we bought our house 8 years ago, we were warned that we'd be expected to join in. This year, we put up over 200 luminarias around our house. And several hundred people made their way through our neighborhood that evening to see them.

Our house.

Looking down the block where the street was closed off for the evening.

A neighbor's design in their front yard.

The view from our front yard. You can't see it but there is a house underneath many of those luminarias.

Happy December

Today, 7am. Any bets on how long the snow lasts? Until 10am?

More chile

I posted a couple of weeks ago about chile harvest season. We have since decided that we just didn't have enough chile, so we got another 40 pounds. I suspect that the first bag was less than 30 pounds and it didn't look like enough for all the sauce and salsa I wanted to make. Here's a rundown of the work that goes into processing 40 pounds of chile.

Hubbers has his peeling operation figured out

Roasted chiles in the bag before peeling

Peeled chiles (these were eaten as rellenos that night)

After peeling, I made 3 batches of green chile sauce from 4 pounds of chiles per batch. Then a batch of salsa (pdf of recipes from NMSU) from 3 pounds of chiles. The rest get ziplocked and frozen.

The End of Summer

It's the best time of the year... summer is ending and fall is getting ready. I can smell it in the air! I already have one bag of Hatch green chiles roasted & peeled. Here are about a dozen of them stuffed with cheese and getting ready to be covered in egg batter and baked into Chile Rellenos Guillermos. This is earlier than I normally get my chiles, but some good friends (and fans of chile) were traveling through on their way to Austin, so we spent an afternoon peeling.

Living in a hot climate, I anticipate these hints of fall (thunderstorms, chiles roasting, etc) much the same way I used to look for hints of spring in Cleveland (daffodils poking through the snow, sun peeking through the clouds, etc).

I could probably use another bag of chiles, and peeling is best done socially, so if anyone local wants to do a chile-peeling morning/afternoon let me know!

Special Shapes

If you get to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta early in the morning, this is what you get to see:
A little later, all the cool shapes start inflating, and then eventually they take off and fly away. Here are some of our favorite shapes from this morning.




And this scene of the normal-shaped balloons convinced us that next year we really need to go to a mass-ascension to see the entire field filled with these balloons.