Albuquerque, New Mexico - October 9th to 14th, 2023

The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta is what attracts most people to Albuquerque. However, most of the Fiesta activities are in the morning and evening, which leaves the afternoon open to explore the area. This post covers what we did outside the Fiesta. For the Fiesta, see our previous post (Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, New Mexico - October 7th to 14th, 2023).

Monday, after most of the balloons landed from the Mass Ascension, we tested out our portable solar panel (paid link). When we first plugged it into the solar port on the EKKO, it was drawing current instead of supplying current. The polarity needed to be switched. The solar panel came with a little adapter to switch the polarity which plugged into the end of the cables. Once the adapter was added, the panel started supplying about 8 amps. Satisfied that everything was working properly, we packed it back up and put it away. Sunshine was in the forecast for most of the week, so we didn’t need the extra panel. Our batteries never dropped below 80% the whole week, even with using the Instant Pot and induction cook top. The solar panels on the roof were enough to keep up with our needs.

After most of the balloons landed, we got out our e-bikes. We wanted to bike some on the Paseo del Bosque Trail next to the Rio Grande River. Before heading to the trail, we stopped for lunch at the Oak Tree Cafe, just a couple of blocks east on Alameda. It was a lovely little place that looked like a local hangout. They had a large community table where people gathered to socialize with each other. We both had Janet’s Bacon Green Chile Cheeseburger with fries, but Ann’s were, of course, sweet potato fries. The food was delicious. To drink, we tried the variety of Stubborn Sodas they had on tap: root beer, agave vanilla cream, black cherry tarragon, lemon berry açaí, and citrus hibiscus orange. We liked them all. Unlike many craft sodas we’ve had in the past, these were not overly sweet, which we prefer. Stubborn Sodas sounded like a local company, so we looked it up. We were surprised to find out that it was created and owned by PepsiCo.

The tricky part about biking the Bosque Trail was finding our way over to the it. We could have ridden straight west on Alameda, but it was just a bike lane most of the way, next to a busy road whizzing by at 40 mph or more. A local told us that we might be able to take the trail along the spillway to the north. That sounded like a better option to us, so we gave it a try. The North Channel Trail heads north for less than a mile before turning east at a smaller diversion channel, leading to the entrance gate of the fiesta, right at the bike valet. That would be a great way to bike over to the Field because there would be less pedestrians and no streets to cross.

Instead of making the right hand turn to the fiesta, we continued straight, leaving the paved path for a gravel one. The No Outlet sign had us a little concerned, but we rode on anyway. The gravel trail passes right alongside the Fiesta Field, giving us a different perspective. At the far end, there was a closed gate. It wasn’t locked, so we opened it and passed through. However, there was a Fiesta worker there who hesitated letting us through until he learned that we just wanted to continue alongside the spillway. At the next street crossing, there was another gate. This one was locked, but we were able to slide our bikes under it. However, as we looked further down the spillway, we could see more gates. Perhaps this was not the best way to get to the river. Instead of retracing our path back to Alameda, we turned south on Edith Boulevard, working our way back to Alameda. It was almost a two mile detour to get almost get back to where we started.

From 4th Street, we took the bike lane alongside Alameda the rest of the way to the Bachechi Open Space where we picked up the Bosque Trail. Riding the bike lane on Alameda was not the most pleasant ride we’ve ever done, but it got us there. The bike lane disappeared every time we approached an intersection, leaving us to fend for ourselves among the vehicles through the intersection.

From Bachechi Open Space, we headed south on the Paseo del Bosque Trail. We decided to try to make it all the way down to the Old Town or Plaza Vieja. It was a lovely, straight, and pretty flat trail alongside a side channel of the Rio Grande River. The cottonwood trees were starting to change colors. At Central Avenue, part of Route 66, we turned east. The bike lane abruptly disappeared, so we took the sidewalk the couple of remaining blocks to the Old Town.

We locked up our bikes at the only bike rack we could find, at the large paid parking lot along Central Avenue. Then we strolled the streets. It was a lovely atmosphere. The Old Town was filled with one or two story adobe buildings, with little alleyways that invited you into hidden courtyards. The large town square is flanked on one side by a large church, San Felipe de Neri. Even though it was a Monday afternoon, there was live entertainment at the Quiosco or bandstand in the middle of the town square.

We were thirsty when we arrived. Ann had dropped her water bottle along the trail and lost most of her water. Meandering down a walkway to the Patio Market, we stumbled across the Blackbird Coffee House. Keith had the Blackbird, iced - an expresso with dark chocolate, chile, and milk. Ann tried the Cactus Nectar iced tea. The drinks were delicious and refreshing.

When we were finished wandering down most of the walkways of the Old Town, we ducked into the Old Town Pizza Parlor for an early dinner. It was a busy little place. We had very typical pizzas for us, a margarita pizza for Keith while Ann ordered sausage, peppers, and onions on hers. The pizza was tasty. It was not as good as Dewey’s Pizza, our new found favorite from the week before in Kansas City on our way to Santa Fe (Santa Fe, New Mexico - October 5th to 6th, 2023), but it was a good New York style crust. They were even kind enough to fill our water bottles for us before we started our ride back.

Our bike ride was about 15 miles to get there, with only an elevation gain of 141 feet which took us a little over two hours, including all the stops we made to figure out where we were headed. On the way back, it was only 12 miles with an elevation gain of only 157 feet, which took us only about an hour and 15 minutes to complete. We didn’t have the detour along the North Channel on the way back and we knew where we were going, so we had fewer stops. We made it back about an hour or so before dark, which was our only goal.

After the Mass Ascension on Tuesday, we went for another bike ride. As we were preparing for a bike ride, we noticed that Keith’s rear tire was completely flat. Upon closer inspection, it looked like a thorn, possibly a goat head, had punctured the tire. Instead of taking the time to try to patch it, we just replaced the inner tube to save us some time. Changing the fat tire on the Rad bike was easier than changing the skinnier tires on our previous bikes, Trek hybrids. We always struggled getting the hybrid tire seated properly back onto the rim. It was a tight fit. As we would try to pry the last little bit of tire back onto the rim, it would pop off somewhere else or we would pinch the inner tube, creating a hole and we would have to start all over again. Hopefully saying this won’t jinx us, but the large Rad tire snapped back onto the rim rather easily.

For lunch, we hopped on our bikes and rode over to a place called Sticky Rice a couple miles south of us. It was a hole in the wall, serving Laotian food. They didn’t have indoor seating, but there were tables in the grass behind the strip mall. Ann ordered lemon grass chicken while Keith got the regular chicken, both served on sticky rice. Ann was hoping it would be served with some veggies, but it was just large pieces of seasoned chicken still on the bone on top of the sticky rice. The menu was very limited, but there were options other than sticky rice to accompany the chicken, such as noodles. But how can you go to a place name Sticky Rice and not get sticky rice?

We split our orders with each other since we couldn’t remember which one was which. To tell you the truth, we couldn’t really tell much difference between the two. However, both were tasty.

The bees found us pretty quickly after we sat down at an outside table. We started leaving our chicken bones at the other end of the table in an attempt to draw them away from us. There were so many of them that we had to be careful every time we took a bite to make sure there wasn’t a bee on what we were about to put in our mouths. Being stung on our face or in our mouth was not something we wanted to experience.

We were out of ice cream, so the main goal of our bike ride was not eating lunch, but getting over to Target to buy ice cream. The Target was not far from Sticky Rice, but it was on the other side of I-25. From Jefferson Street, we turned onto Headline Boulevard over towards Capella’s. The street dead-ends at a bike trailhead. The trail leads up and over I-25, with Target just on the other side. While we were at Target, we picked up a couple of other items besides ice cream. Then we wrapped the ice cream with Keith’s sweater and placed it in a bike pannier. It took us 23 minutes to ride back to Red Tail (our Winnebago EKKO). The ice cream made the trip with no issues. It was still hard when we arrived at our camp site. We’re not sure why we were so worried about carrying ice cream on our bikes. If we drove to the store, we would think nothing of leaving ice cream in the car for half an hour while driving home.

We made it back just in time to walk over to the meet and greet location near the Balloon Museum. We have been following the YouTube channel Less Junk, More Journey (LJMJ) for six or seven years. So when we found out they were having a meet and greet at the Balloon Fiesta, we thought it would be great to finally meet them in person. We waited in a short line to get the chance to chat with Nathan and Marissa for a few minutes. From our brief conversation, they seemed to be the same, friendly people as their videos portray.

We probably should have stayed longer at the meet and greet, getting to know some of the other LJMJ fans, but we are both introverts and Keith is not much of a crowd mingler. Instead, we walked over to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta headquarters building to their gift shop. Ann wanted to buy a T-shirt, but the couple of Official Merchandise Tents in the park always had long lines to get in. The quantity of supplies are more limited at the gift shop, but there are no lines and no waiting, a much more pleasant experience. Ann was able to find a T-shirt she liked in her size along with a hoodie. Keith picked up a drink cozy.

We relaxed the rest of the day. For dinner, we cooked an egg scramble with lots of veggies outside on our Blackstone griddle. Ann gets cranky when she does get enough veggies in her diet. Of course, we had ice cream for dessert. Then we went for a walk around the South Lot to burn some of those calories off.

After most of the balloons had landed Wednesday morning, we walked over to the Albuquerque International Balloon Museum. Our plan was to tour the museum in the morning and go on a bike ride in the afternoon. However, we enjoyed the museum so much, we spent most of the day there and skipped the bike ride. It was $6 per adult to get in, which was good for all day. We explored part of the museum, then watched the movie. The movie was actually three movies running back to back. The first one was a nice PBS segment on how hot air balloons work. The second movie was by Rainbow Ryders, the folks that give balloon rides. They showed what was involved with setting up a balloon, going for a ride, landing, and packing everything back up. The third movie was a detailed documentary on the Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon Race.

Before we entered the movie theater, we stopped by the Gordon Bennett control center room. There were still two balloons left in the air for the race that started on Sunday. By the time we left the movie theater, the two had landed, thus ending the race. France Team 2, Eric Decelières and Benoit Havret, won by landing in Jacksonville, North Carolina, with a distance of 2661.4 km (1653.7 miles) in 3 days, 16 hours, and 46 minutes. Congratulations! We later learned that Poland Team 1 had crashed on Tuesday near Crandall, Texas. Both pilots were hospitalized for burns and broken bones from the balloon exploding as it contacted some power lines (news article). We wish them both a speedy recovery.

After watching the movies, we walked back to Red Tail to eat lunch. Then we walked back to the museum to finish exploring it. The museum does a nice job showing the history of ballooning, the science and technology of ballooning, weather forecasting, and interactive displays for kids. We found it rather fascinating. We normally are not big on visiting museums as we usually reach our saturation point pretty quickly. However, this museum had enough science and technology to keep us going. Taking a break for lunch also helped us stay longer than we normally would in a museum.

While we were at the museum, we stopped in the gift shop to pick up a couple of solar eclipse glasses. We had forgotten all about the annular solar eclipse that was happening on Saturday. Albuquerque was in the path of 90% coverage, the maximum for this eclipse. What a happy coincidence!

Every now and then, we would smell chocolate chip cookies baking. Ann remembers smelling it at 4 am when we got up early the previous Sunday. She was thinking to herself “Who bakes cookies at 4 o’clock in the morning?”. We learned later that the General Mills plant is nearby. Sometimes the wonderful aromas would be different, but more times than not, it smelled like chocolate chip cookies to us. We don’t know what types of products they bake at the plant, but it usually smelled good while we were camping at the fiesta.

The Thursday morning Mass Ascension was cancelled due to high winds. Even though the winds had not yet started up near the ground, the cold front was already overhead and there were 50 mph winds up higher. A couple of hours later, the winds picked up and were strong all day. We stayed inside our rig most of the day. To stretch our legs, we walked over to Oak Tree Cafe for lunch. This time we had craft sandwiches instead of burgers. Ann wanted a reuben, but they were out of corned beef. Instead she had the Rachel, which is a reuben with turkey instead of corned beef. It was pretty tasty, with a good amount of sauerkraut, just the way she likes it. Keith had the Al Capone, which had ham, salami, pepperoni, and provolone on a baguette. Ann ordered sweet potato fries again, but this time they were waffle fries. They were still delicious.

Every now and then in the evening, we would pull up the Balloon Fiesta Live broadcast to check on the status of events. The sky divers did not jump in the evening due to the winds. The evening glow was also cancelled. We’re not certain, but we think the drone show was also cancelled. They did have fireworks that night. We could hear and see them from Red Tail.

When we returned to Red Tail after the morning session at Balloon Fiesta Park on Friday, we fixed lunch and took a short nap. Then we got the bikes out and went for a ride. We saw on Google Maps, that there was a trail on the south side of Alameda so we thought we would try to find it. It actually wasn’t hard to find at all. In most places, it wasn’t much more than a sidewalk, but it was set back from the road most of the time. We don’t know why we didn’t see it during our ride on Monday. The trail was much more pleasant than riding in the bike lane on the road next to the heavy traffic.

We rode down to the Paseo del Bosque Trail, but this time we turned right instead of left, heading north. Just after crossing under Alameda, there is a small bridge over the diversion channel. We took that along with the next larger bridge we took us over the Rio Grande River, well, where the Rio Grande River should be. In the main channel of the river, there was hardly any water at all. It was more like puddles of water. It appeared that the river was not actually flowing there, as the water there didn’t look like it was all connected. There was more water in the diversion channels, where water was actually flowing.

After taking a couple of pictures of the non-existent river, we headed back over the two bridges. From there, there was a dirt trail that continued north alongside the diversion channel. It looked inviting, so we headed down the dirt trail. It was narrow, passing through tunnels of trees and bushes, so it was well shaded. On our left was the water while on our right was the backyards of houses and ranches. The sand on the trail got a little deep in a few places, but with our wide tires and a little power assist, we cruised through the sand without any major problems.

After about a mile or two, there was a bridge over the diversion channel which took us to another trail. This one was up higher on top of a ridge. We returned to the bridge on the higher trail. It was wider and more exposed, without any deep sand. It was quite as scenic as the lower trail on the other side of the channel, but it was still a nice ride. Where we crossed the channel, there were nice views of the mountains.

Back where we got onto Paseo del Bosque Trail is Bachechi Open Space. There are walking trails there, so we locked up our bikes and wandered the paths. The area was once a private farm, owned by the Bachechi family, with orchards, alfalfa fields, and chickens. Some of the fruit trees and irrigation ditches remain along with a rose garden. A bird blind on the edge of a small lake provided us views of ducks out on the water. A boardwalk over a small pond held several frogs. A wooded area was teaming with birds. It was a very pleasant stroll.

On the way back to the South Lot, we stopped at the Circle K convenience store to pick up a couple of items. We were back in time to start cooking dinner. In total, we rode about 9.5 miles with an elevation gain of only 135 feet in about an hour and 45 minutes, not counting our stroll through the Bachechi Open Space. It was a nice leisurely afternoon ride.

Before all the balloons had landed Saturday morning, it was solar eclipse time. A special balloon glow was scheduled during the eclipse, but we didn’t go over to the Fiesta Park to see it. We’re not quite sure how well that went because, even though the moon had 90% coverage where we were, it didn’t really seem to be much darker than before the eclipse.

In Albuquerque, the eclipse started at 9:13 am with the annularity starting at 10:34 am. The annularity is when the moon is completely inside the sun, what is called the Ring of Fire. The Ring of Fire continued until 10:39 am with the eclipse ending at 12:09 pm. Ann tried to get some photos of the eclipse, but she did not research how to do that, so she just experimented. She set up the GoPro on time lapse, but it has such a wide angle that you couldn’t even tell an eclipse was happening. Plus, Ann didn’t account enough for the movement of the sun, so it eventually started leaving the frame.

We tried putting the solar glasses over our phone lenses, but again, it didn’t really work because we weren’t optically zoomed in close enough. Then Ann tried putting the solar glasses over her Canon Powershot (paid link) lens and zoom in close. Bingo! That seemed to do the trick. Some of the pictures turned out great, while a few others were not in sharp focus, but still decent. She even captured some sun spots.

On one of Ann’s trips over to the port-a-potty, she saw a group of four sitting in a row, all with their solar eclipse glasses on. She thought they looked cute all lined up together, so she said so as she passed. They asked if she could take their picture with their phones, so she did. She asked if she could use a picture of them for our blog. We ended up having a lovely conversation. They were there with a hot air balloon called “Eclipse”, which debuted at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta that week. How cool!

After the Ring of Fire, but still during the eclipse, Ann went in search of trees. She remembers a previous eclipse where the leaves on trees acted like pin hole viewers and created upside down images of the eclipse in the shadows on the ground. When she was a child, pin hole viewers were what was used to view eclipses, at least for her family. There are not many trees or bushes around the South Lot, but Ann managed to find a few creating the shadows she was looking for.

This was all good practice for us for the total eclipse happening on April 8, 2024. We’ll be better prepared then. We already had our campground reservations for Texas, in the path of totality.

In the evening, we went to one more session at Balloon Fiesta Park. Sunday we got up again at 7 am. It was the last session of the Balloon Fiesta, but it was too windy to fly. We were hoping to see a few more balloons before we packed up to leave, but it was not to be. So we packed up and were on the road by 9 am.

We are both introverts, so being around large masses of people for long periods of time drains our energy. It was nice to be able to hop on our bikes to reach some peaceful areas of Albuquerque, away from most of the people, and reconnect with nature. It allowed us to recharge and enjoy the Balloon Fiesta all the more.

Check out our related video: Albuquerque, New Mexico

(Ann)