The Albuquerque International Balloon Festival was begun in 1972.
A local radio station, 770 KOB, which is still with us, was celebrating their 50th anniversary. They convinced Sid Cutter, who operated a small airport in Albuquerque, and had the only hot air balloon in New Mexico, to let them use his hot air balloon as part of the celebration. The rest is history.
In 2019, there are 588 balloons in the sky, 866,414 guests, and 671 pilots from around the globe.
Standing on a hill at the Juan Tabo picnic ground, this early morning photo is of balloonists beginning a mass ascension into clear skies. The city of Albuquerque spreads out almost as far as you can see and the balloons look lazy in the skies. There will be events, competitions, and spectacles during the festival and fun will be had by all.
The festival runs, this year, from October 3rd, 2020 to October 11th. The official website gives specifics, videos, photographs, reviews, news about the next balloon extravaganza to hit our city.
From the top of the little hill, Scotttreks gets an easy look at the balloons, without parking issues, crowds, and expenses.
Not liking heights much, if I had my choice, I would opt out of ballooning for snorkeling in the Caribbean with brightly colored fish and pina coladas in the middle of the afternoon.
The balloons, this morning, look like periods in a novel, jumping off the page, glad to be away from all those crazy human misconceptions, yearnings, and propaganda.
At the Albuquerque Zoo, there are plenty of animals; birds, monkeys, a tiger or two, penguins, giraffes, jackals,zebras. They are well cared for in their little enclosures and we can stand at a rail and admire their coloration, adaptations, behaviors. There will come a time when the only animals we will see will be in zoos, but there are still places in the world where animals spend their days and don’t ever see a human.
Pushing the ball just ahead of its huge mouth, this playful hippo walks in his pool because these river horses don’t really swim, but walk along the bottom of rivers or pools, as they hold their breath under the water. They are speedy and quite dangerous in the wild.
Until Scotttreks does its next safari, these zoo animals will have to do.
If I were to organize a parade, this star of the show would have to be in front.
While turtles are cool, hippos, looking ungainly and mis-proportioned, steal this show with quite surprising grace, and playfulness.
This is a scene from a local Wal-Mart, a scene many Americans are now becoming familiar with.
This is the Russia we used to see on national TV, in the sixties and seventies, and talk about in high school when the benefits of Communism were trumpeted by the hippie in the back row. Now, reality, has come to roost, in our neighborhoods.
In the space of several weeks, ten million Americans have been laid off, private businesses have been shut down and called ” not essential ” by people who have never run a business. Ideas of ” social distancing ” and ” flattening the curve ” are flown from flagpoles, and executed in marching order by federal, state, county and city governments. Hot lines urge citizens to call and report neighbors for daring to keep their business open so they can feed their families.
Where we go from here is unknown, but it isn’t going to be something I accept, or like, and must resist.
!984 took a while to get here, but we are living a good dose of it now.
At this point, with almost seven hundred posts, thousands of photographs, almost a hundred videos, and five years on line as Scotttreks, it seems like a Dedication is due.
Many, if not all, literary works, art, music, drama and dance presentations have dedications, moments at the front of the effort that recognize significant influences on the person who has taken the time and effort to put things out there for others to enjoy, analyse, pan, or profit from.. Sometimes it is a wife, children, teachers and mentors who get the nod. Sometimes it is personal secretaries and editors who help ideas get to a place they can be loosed on the world, Sometimes dedications are to God, Muses, spirits and traditions
There are plenty of places and people to dedicate Scotttreks too,but it seems right to thank my parents for giving me their name, their attention, their love and concern.
While they haven’t put the words in my mouth or on paper, haven’t suggested what I do or don’t do, they always wanted the best for us that we could make for ourselves.
This little blog, with places still to go and time left to go there, is dedicated to Julia Ann and James Lowell.
I like to think they are reading the blog, wherever they are, happy that I am happy writing it.
Halloween creeps closer as leaves start to fall, pumpkins appear in windows, hot air balloons arrive for the annual Balloon fest in Albuquerque, creepy spiders turn up in school cafeterias and jackets become more than optional.
It is a sparkling day and these three skeletons, in an Albuquerque North Valley front yard, don’t dress up, worry about hair style or designer clothes. They look content in their birthday suits without the excess weight, blemishes and imperfections that the rest of us have to carry wherever we go.
Next holiday season, I will set up my front yard like this too, but give my skeleton family a television to watch Netflix, game shows, soaps, or Dr. Phil.
In a few weeks this congregation will put on their Pilgrim outfits and be chasing turkeys around the yard with hatchets. A few weeks after that, they will be hanging Christmas lights in these front yard evergreens and singing carols by a manger,surrounded by animals and angels, Mary and Joseph, welcoming Baby Jesus to the planet nuthouse.
Bones keep popping up in Scotttreks, and, to be honest, we all need one day a year when creepy stuff camps in our front yard and ghosts and goblins have their say.
The last thought that hits me, between my ears,as I speed away in my car, is that if we had to wash each of our bones, our showers would take all day and family members would rightfully want to kill us.
R.I.P. is not bad advice, whether we are skeletons, or not.
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