Balloons in New Mexico, October 22, 2007

Last week we attended the Annual Balloon Festival, held in Albuquerque, NM. The festival lasted about two weeks, so we only were there for the last four days. We were there as part of a group activity of our Escapees RV Club, so we had a chance to renew some friendships and make some new ones. Many of the members there were retired people, full timers like us --- so as I like to say, it was nice to meet some adults!

This was really an experience beyond any expectation that I had --- been impressive, but difficult to give justice by either a description or photographs. There were said, to be 800 hot-air balloons participating; but believe me, whatever the number, there were a lot of balloons, of every size and shape.

The first evening there was an event called the “Balloon Glowdeo”. This event was held in the dusk and after dark. The balloonist inflated their baloons, but kept them tethered to the ground. Then periodically they would turn on their propane burners, in such a way that they would emit a bright yellow flame, and illuminate the whole balloon, from the inside. The effect was beautiful and with the funny shaped balloons, interesting. Unfortunately our digital camera doesn’t seem to function well in the dark, so we did not get good photos. Below is one photo, to give you an idea of what I am writing.

The next day there was an event called a mass ascension, where all the balloons filled with hot air, in several waves. The idea was to get all the balloons in the air at one time. At this event we had a chance to see in the air many, what I would call “funny balloons”, actually flying. There were balloons of every description: the Bunny Energizer, a pink elephant, an inflated bank building, a cow, just to mention a few. Below are some pictures of some of the more interesting balloons.

We enjoyed the Balloon Festival, and left after watching the last launching Sunday morning. From Albuquerque, we made our way across the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi to Red Bay, Alabama. We are here to get a little work done our RV at the Tiffin factory repair facility. It is mostly minor stuff, but we do want to get the compartment doors that we damaged in the Yukon Territory repaired.

Across the Painted Desert, Oct. 11, 2007

Yesterday, we crossed part of the Painted Desert driving from Phoenix, AZ to Grants, NM, en route to the Balloon Festival in Albuquerque. While we did not have any adventures, the trip did bring back memories of the many great times I have had in this part of Arizona and New Mexico.

The trip up over the mountain in Arizona between Black Canyon City and Camp Verde is always striking. Once on top of the rise, there is a large plateau with a good view of the mountains to the west and lot of black volcanic rocks interspersed with grass on the high desert. Then we descended into the Verde River Valley, where we have camped several times with friends and with my sister and brother in law. Nearby were the beautiful red rock of Sedona, an interesting town, thought to be near the center of the universe my New Age people. In the National Forest Land here is some of the best area for short hikes in Arizona, with many cliffs, and several natural bridges. There are also some well preserved PreColombian Indian ruins as well as some striking pictographs.

Then the road goes up the Mogollon Rim from the desert of the Verde River Valley to the forested area of Flagstaff where the San Francisco Mountains dominate the scenery. Here we turn west and soon are crossing the Painted Desert. I always want to start humming part of Grafe's "Grand Canyon Suite", when I cross the desert. Yesterday was a nice clear day, so the reds colors of the Painted Desert were particularly striking. As we proceed, we skirt north of Meteor Crater, well-worth a visit, skirt south of First, Second and Third Mesa, home of the Hopi's, and south of Keams Canyon, where our niece teaches in a Navajo School and drive along north of the Petrified Forest National Park --- a park we want to visit again!

Soon we cross the border and are in New Mexico. After going through Gallup, where I attended my first rodeo over sixty years ago, and then drove along the long red mesa, the ranch where my brother's wife lived over seventy-five years ago, and which I visited as a teenager. Then we drove over a long gradually ascending plateau, crossing the Continental Divide, (although the divide looked pretty flat from the road, and soon were here in Grants).

Phoenix, and Boron October 9, 2007

We have been in Phoenix, Arizona the last few days. The weather is quite a change from our summer in Alaska. Most days it gets up in the 90's, but cools off nicely during the night. We are visiting our sister-in law, who has had surgery and is quite ill. We nephews and nieces have come to visit her, so we are having a lot of family visiting

I forgot to mention or visit to the village of Boron, California on our way to Phoenix. Boron is the site of a large open-pit borax mine, and also has a small museum devoted mostly to borate. I knew that at one time most of the borate came from the Furnace Creek area of Death Valley,where it was mined, and refined, by dissolving it and re precipitating it, as I recall, and then transported to Mojave, California over the desert in a couple of huge waggons, pulled by the famous Twenty Mule Teams. As I understand it, the borax forms in the dry lake beds in Death Valley, by selectively precipitating from the water, as the lakes slowly evaporate.

What i did not know, was that in California, there are huge underground deposits of boron in several different chemical forms, which have been actively mined for a number of years by underground mines, which have been modified to huge open pit mines. These are said to be the second largest borate deposits in the world -- the largest are in Turkey.

I could learn nothing of the geology of these underground borate deposits, so I don't know why borate type rocks are deposited in such large quantities in just a few parts of the world.

For the chemist among you, boron is an interesting compound. As I recall it forms glasses, similarly to silicon compounds, and I believe it has an interesting chemistry of covalent compounds, similar to carbon. Of course, the most com on everyday use of boron compounds are as cleansers, such as Boraxo, and antiseptics as boric acid.

Unfortunately for me, the museum did not have too much information on the technology of using boron compounds.

We will be here in Phoenix for another day, and then we move to Albuquerque to the Balloon Festival.

Across the Desert, October 4,007

We spent last week in the Bay Area of California, visiting nieces, grand nieces and grand nephews, as well as a daughter and two grandchildren (who are either in or graduated from college).We also had a lovely diner in our RV with an old schoolmate of Madie’s and his escort. So as you can see we spent a terrific week, just visiting. Then we moved on to Sacramento, where we visited more nephews, nieces, and grand nephews .Lots of fun for us – but perhaps would prefer not to detail the names on a blog.

From Sacramento, we proceeded on a trip to Phoenix. It is still petty hot in the Southwest, so the desert looked ---- well, deserty. I reflected back to 40 to 50 years ago or so, before cars were air conditioned and before the Interstate highways existed. At that time taking an automobile trip West was a big deal --- the sort of thing a man, having made the trip, would take his pictures and put on a presentation at the Rotary Club. In those days, people would stay in a motel day, the day before crossing the desert, and then cross a night when it was cooler. In those days, in the West people carried a canvas bag full of water in front of their car. Water seeping through the canvas, would keep the water cooling. Evaporative cooling in the 1950’s, I guess.

I usually like the desert, but I must admit that after the green forest, clear lakes, and glacier-covered mountain-tops in Alaska and Canada, the desert looks a little scruffy.. Madeline and I both thought that the Mojave Desert, characterized by Joshua Trees, was nowhere as pretty, perhaps even a little ugly, compared to the Sonoran Desert, characterized by Saguaro Cacti.

On our way to Phoenix, we stopped at Lake Havasu City, which is a relatively new city perched in the desert on the shore of a lake formed from a dammed-up Colorado River. One of the important attractions there is London Bridge, which is the original London Bridge ,which was torn down and transported stone by stone to Arizona. For a variety of reasons, we did not get to visit the Bridge until late one very hot afternoon, so we were not in the best of humor. The bridge was much shorter than we expected, and was not particularly impressive. There is said to be an English Village type shopping area under it. We got out of the car looked at the Bridge, but decided we did not feel like shopping, so returned to camp. I had expected to see two towers and lots of shops along the bridge – not so. I guess the Bridge probably seems misplaced in the middle of the desert, when I, at least, was expecting a scene from a Dickens’s novel.

We finally arrived in Phoenix and as I write this, I am in the RV and the RV is in a Freightliner garage, getting oil, filters etc changed.