A Full Friday

Friday, September 30, 2016

We took off early this morning on a group tour that took us to Sandia Peak. The mountains are named Sandia (Spanish) for watermelon because from a distance the mountains are shaped like a watermelon slice! (Not sure I agree!).  The tram line sits in the Cibola (Indian for buffalo) national forest. We took the Sandia Peak aerial tram up the side of the mountain. The tram line is 2.7 miles long, and took us on a vertical rise of 3,800 feet to the peak at 10,378 feet!!  The views were enchanting as we crept higher and higher along the mountainside above the clouds.  You could even see some fall colors in the vegetation on the mountain slope!    At one point the conductor told us we were as tall as the Eifel tower, and only 7.2 seconds from the bottom of the mountain below!  There were beautiful views, especially with the clouds breezing by below us.  What an interesting ride.  At the top you could see for miles and miles.  We also learned a little about the mountains which were created by a gigantic slip of the earth’s crust called an upthrust.   Each tram car held about 50 people.  They said that there would be 25,000 people going up and down the mountain during balloon fest week.  That’s a lot of trips up and down!!  There is a ski area at the top of the peak that was opened in 1936..the first ski area in New Mexico.  Near the tram station there was a Ski Museum, and we found our ancestor, C.A. Lund, created skis!  Gosh, what an accomplished family…there are Lund Boats and now we discover Lund snow skis from the 1930’s!! 

We got our bikes out this afternoon and explored the grounds, and visited the International Balloon Museum.  It is an impressive place, built to look like a balloon laying on its side.  There is quite a bit of history on balloons and balloon travel.  Balloonists are called aeronauts (vs astronauts). There is quite a science involved in ballooning.  We learned that the reason Albuquerque is such a good place for balloons is due to the Albuquerque “box”.  The city lies in the valley of the Rio Grande, and typically there is a predictable wind pattern that balloonists can take advantage of to change direction by varying their altitude—i.e. there is a low air stream heading south, and a higher airstream heading north, (the “box”) so balloonists can easily manage their route, and stay in a confined area.

I was a little deflated when we came out of the museum and my bike tire was flat!  Apparently there are a lot of thorns in the area from the desert brush—they call the thorns “goatheads”.  We were warned about them getting in dog paws, but not in bike tires!   Luckily Jim came to the rescue and pulled out the spare with the tools, so we didn’t have to walk back.

As we returned to the RV area, we could see the motorhomes lined up all the way to the interstate, in a double row, waiting to get into the rv area.  It really does remind us of a NASCAR race, and made us very glad we were able to come in with our group yesterday and avoid the chaos.

We had a pizza and salad dinner, met some more good people, drank a Bronco Bud Light (even tasted different and weird!) Now we need to get to bed because things start very very early tomorrow…