Sandia Crest

We took Jenny up to the top of the east mountains to show her some more amazing views.  It was a little chilly up there but we got to see some beautiful fall colors!







Love the colors of the aspens!



We also took a short hike/walk along the crest.  Apparently this trail is a lot of fun to snow shoe on in the winter, so we'll definitely have to go back in a few months to check it out!

Balloon Fiesta 2016

Little known fact- Albuquerque is one of the best hot air ballooning locations in the world!  This is because of what's known as the "Albuquerque box," a perfect combination of low humidity, altitude, mountains to the east, and wind currents that creates a path for the balloons to travel around the city and end up back where they started... theoretically...




Each balloon has a "chaser car" that basically drives erratically all over the city to follow the balloon and pick it up in case it doesn't follow the box!  So this is the one week a year when traffic can get a bit tricky here!  Jenny was here for the first weekend of the balloon fiesta and we had heard so many good things about it, so we decided to get up early and go for the morning session.  They do a dawn patrol around 6:00 am, which is about 10 balloons that go up to test the conditions before they decide that it's safe for all the other hundreds of balloons to go up at 7:00.







It was tough getting up so early on the weekend but it was a beautiful sunrise and well worth it!  We got to walk around the field and get up close and personal with all of the balloons as they were prepping to launch.  It was really interesting to see all that goes into getting them opened up enough to actually start the flame.  They use huge fans and have people actually walking around inside the balloon while it's on the ground to help get it open.








Hundreds of balloons all launch within an hour of each other and it is an incredible sight!







There are also a bunch of special shapes including Darth Vader and Yoda, a giant cow, Smoky Bear, and lots of others.













As if that wasn't enough, they also had live chainsaw carving!





It was an awesome morning enjoying one of the ultimate Albuquerque experiences.  To top it off we enjoyed some of the best Bloody Mary's EVER at a place right up the street from our house.  The weekend Bloody Mary bar at Scalo is $8 for anything you can fit "into" your glass including sliders, crab legs, shrimp, fried chicken wings, taquitos, giant soft pretzels, donuts, and more!  No food order necessary!

Jenny's Visit!

Josh's mom came to visit at the end of September so we got to show off our new home and city to her!  We did a little hiking and plenty of eating and she and Josh got to explore some parts of town that we hadn't been yet.  Bailey was very happy to see a familiar face...



One night we took the tram up to the top of the mountain to have dinner.



We had some beautiful views of the changing fall colors on the ride up!







We were hoping for a nice sunset, but unfortunately we had a freak rainstorm that actually came from the west and moved over the city and into the east mountains.  This is something that usually NEVER happens!  The rain comes in from the east and usually gets stuck in the mountains, which is part of why  it's so dry in the city.  So no great sunset but luckily we got up to the top before the rain so we were able to enjoy the views before eating dinner.



And here's a nice eerie picture of the city on our way back down...



We took Jenny on one of our go-to hikes (because it's never crowded and remote enough to let the dogs run around) on her first day here.  The altitude change was a bit of a struggle, but Jenny was a trooper and I think she enjoyed the scenery!





And even though we didn't get a great sunset from the mountain top, we're lucky enough to have some beautiful views of the sunsets out our front door from time to time!



More of Jenny's visit coming soon!

Biking on Bear Scat

After biking in Breckenridge, Josh got really excited about getting back into mountain biking.  Jenny was nice enough to let him have his birthday present early, so a few weeks ago we got an enormous box delivered with his beautiful new bike!  And I was the lucky recipient of his hand-me-down bike, which actually fits me really well and was kind of too small for Josh :)





We decided to try out a trail that we had hiked before (Bear Scat Trail) because we thought it was pretty easy and it's remote enough that we can have the dogs off leash to run along with us.  Addie and I used to do a 12 mile ride about once a week when we lived in Augusta, back in our younger days, so she hadn't been biking since then.  We weren't sure how Bailey would do and were a little worried because when we're in the car and she sees a bike she has a tendency to FREAK OUT and bark and lunge at the window.  But we decided it would be good exercise for them so we brought them along anyway...



Luckily it all worked out pretty well!  The trail turned out to be A LOT harder on bikes than it is on foot, and when we looked it up later we discovered it was a black diamond in the biking world.  But we survived and it was a really fun time!  And even Bailey behaved well once she figured out that this meant that she got to run run run run run, her favorite thing to do in life.  Needless to say we had some worn out puppies by the end!





It was a little too rocky for my preference and I'd probably like to try a blue trail next time instead, but we survived relatively unscathed!  And on the way down the mountain we saw some early signs of fall, my favorite time of year :)

New Mexico State Fair

Even though all of my coworkers said it wasn't really very exciting, Josh and I decided that we should go to the NM state fair at least once.  It was definitely good people watching, and we got to eat some interesting local fare, but I don't know that we'll go back next year.  My favorite part was the green chile cheese burger that was deep fried in funnel cake batter... I know it sounds kind of disgusting, but it was surprisingly yummy!  And they have a beer brewed especially for the fair every year!  Unfortunately you had to stay in a designated, fenced in area to enjoy your adult beverages, which probably was one of the major shortcomings of the fair.





They also had a little zoo area with lots of cute baby animals, so that was fun for me :)  Sadly it was kind of dark so I didn't get a lot of good pics but here are a few of the ones that came out okay...