bobanddenisewanderlust

We stayed in bed until 7 AM, then went out to see the balloons flying overhead. We stopped in at the tent for the continental breakfast and I picked up a bagel on my way to see if any of the balloons were landing. One was, so we dropped our coffee cups on the ground and ran over to help.

We assisted with the landing, for a very nice guy named Dave( his balloon sponsor was an Assisted Living Facility). We assisted him with keeping the balloon down, then he lifted the balloon, with us guiding him, and put it down in his chase vehicle trailer. Neat! It was really easy to move with the balloon doing most of the work. Then we assisted with packing up the balloon.

His mother-in-law gave us a pin and card, then Dave pulled out Champagne.

He told us the Champagne story. When the first balloonists started flying in France, the French were not happy about them landing in their fields. So the balloonists, would bring a bottle of champagne and that satisfied the farmers. So a tradition was born! Before he popped the cork, he said the balloonist prayer:

Then he popped the cork. The tradition is to spray everyone with champagne, but he did not do that to us. He was a really nice guy!

A second balloon landed, and all they did was say thank-you!

At 11:00 we car pooled/ or caravanned to the Sandia Peak tram. We had signed up for this tour. We took the tram, which holds 50 people, to the top of Sandia Peak.

On the far side of the peak is the Sandia Ski Resort.

The clouds cleared long enough for us to get pictures, then they closed in and the rain started. It rained pretty hard.

We had a nice lunch in the restaurant. At our table were Craig, Bob, Me, Catherine, Terry, and Randy. Randy is the club president and of course Craig was our Wagon Master.

We rode the tram back down, then cruised through the gift shop. We bought little balloon pins that light up. They are pretty cute!

We stopped at the grocery store then returned to the motor home, just in time for happy hour. We recounted our day.

Craig Craig has our schedule on the board everyday.

While we had been helping Dave land, another balloon landed right in front of our motor home. Craig took these pictures. He had actually had to run up to the balloon and push it to the side, so that it would not hit a parked car. By the time we returned from Sandia Peak, that entire area had filled in with a Good Sam rally, so the  spot for landing is now gone.

That is our rally tent on the left, so they landed right in our area!

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