Hi everyone!
I've been up to a bunch of stuff this weekend past, where I managed to request 3 days of unpaid leave from work to go an event I'd had my eye on for a while, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. And while I was at it, might as well explore the area, so after lots of figuring & changes of plan, over 5 days 6 nights from Friday to Wednesday, I managed to go to Dallas Texas, south western Colorado, eastern Arizona and New Mexico. 2500 miles later, I'm totally over driving, but I've seen the best college football match, been to two new states, and the world's largest hot air balloon festival.
Originally I'd planned to spend 5 days out and about in NM, but at the last minute I realised the OU vs Texas match was on Saturday the same weekend, and I couldn't miss it. I plan to write about it in another little story on college sports which is to follow this, so I'll leave those details for later.
But after the footy match I drove back and arrived in Norman at 10pm at night, packed the car and went to sleep, ready to wake up nice and early at 3:20am to have a quick breakfast and head up to Kevin's place in the city. The reason for such an early start was that we had a he-uge day of driving ahead, planning to get all the way through 4 states to Durango in far southwest Colorado (close to 950 miles), as well as making Shiprock in northwest New Mexico by sunset. I rocked up at Kevin's hoping he'd drive first leg as I was in need of sleep, to find he'd only slept 30 minutes before I called him! He'd been up all night struggling to load the maps we would need into his GPS. So we loaded up, and set off westward in the dark. I was fighting to stay awake, to cover good distance & give Kevin time to sleep, but finally after over an hour in the dark, I decided that it was too risky for either of us to continue, so we pulled in at a rest stop and both slept for half an hour. When we woke up, the sun had just risen, and Kevin took over. Twice more we would alternate, and then I would do the majority of the driving the rest of the trip.
By mid morning we reached the Cadillac Ranch west of Amarillo, Texas, something I passed without knowing on my first drive back with my Jeep from Colorado Springs in March. It's one of those offbeat, eccentric roadside attractions that are part of the appeal of a holiday driving around the American West. 10 wrecks of Cadillacs representing the 'golden age' of American Automobiles from 1949 - 1963 stand half buried nose first in a line pointing west. This is in the middle of a dusty wheat field off the side of I-40, where spinning in a circle shows me the now-familiar flat horizon of the Great Plains. Tourists casually come and go a few people at a time throughout the day 24-7, to marvel at the wrecks which are unremarkable yet remarkable. The glass & electrics are long gone, rear tyres half disintegrated or missing, the only thing of wonder is how many layers of paint there really is on the visitor graffiti that covers every inch. You wouldn't think 10 cars in a field would be that interesting but somehow it was pretty cool.
After god knows how many fuel stops we drove all day to finally reach our objective by sundown, Shiprock New Mexico. A sheer rock so massive above the surrounding flat plains that it's visible for miles, the whole time we were driving toward it, Kevin or I would joke "wow, would you look at that?", "Hey Kev look, there's Shiprock" ...around another bend... "there it is again." After driving toward it forever, we came across a town, and a massive dust cloud. The dust cloud turned out to be traffic leaving the country fair that was going on in the town of Shiprock. Concerned with the time left before sunset and getting lost on the unsigned roads of NM we finally picked a safe looking dusty track off the side of the highway that followed the crazy volcanic ridge towards Shiprock. After photos at a gap in the curiously shaped ridge and some testing out of the Jeep's new offroading capabilities, we crossed around the base of Shiprock just after sunset. The size of the thing is incredible and deceiving. Also from our vantage point on the ridge, we could see no other car headlights for miles. It's remoteness was completely unexpected for something so spectacular, I can't understand why there isn't a road and a carpark to the base, unless it's by decision of the Navajo who own the land.
So after some cautious driving on steep grades and a bit of a moment nearly getting stuck in a ditch, we made it back to the highway and cruised up into Colorado.
Kevin called ahead to the Steamworks Brewery to ensure they were open, we rolled into town at about 9:30pm and had a great dinner and I ordered the sampler of 6 of their famous & award winning beers. By 10:30pm I was ready for sleep and was stunned to see people riding around on bicycles in the cold! The Quality Inn in Durango was awesome, brand new, in another league compared to the (lack of) Quality Inn that I spent 10 days in Norman. In the morning after realising I'd forgotten deodorant & Kevin had left behind his toothbrush & razor, I went down to reception to ask if they had this stuff. Kevin said it might be free, sure enough, the girl cheerfully said "sure!" and came back out with miniature deodorant, razor and shaving foam, toothbrush and toothpaste! I was expecting to pay like 10 bucks but it was free! I was blown away. Guess i'm used to hotels where you pay $2.50 for the 175mL bottles of water on the front table next to the welcome letter. Walked out the front lobby doors to the car for a late start but wait...is this typical Durango? A girl dressed in a tutu in the crisp morning air was standing next to her bicycle loaded with baggage, stopped on the side of the highway talking on the celly! Resisting temptation to ask Why the tutu (she was attractive), we headed west for Mesa Verde National Park.
Mesa Verde, Spanish for Green Table, is an enormous flat-topped mountain range unlike anything I've ever seen, filled with canyons and home to the most notable & well preserved cliff dwellings of Ancestral Pueblo Native Americans in the US. A spectacular drive that rivaled the Pikes Peak Highway wound its way to the Visitor Center, where a cool exhibition showcased the craftsmanship of the Pueblo people. Purchasing a ticket to the Cliff Palace tour, the most famous of the cliff dwellings, we headed off to catch the next hourly tour. I'd seen photographs of it while researching the trip, but walking over to the lookout to behold the Cliff Palace was stunning. Nestled in under an enormous natural rock overhang, like a wide open mouth to a cave, the ancient city looked out over a steep canyon. During the tour we learned that back in the day there was only one way in or out, where the Puebloans climbed a crevasse up one side to the Mesa top, carving hand and foot holds in the rock. From 600 A.D. to 1300 A.D., the Pueblo Native Americans lived for 700 years and flourished in Mesa Verde. For the first 600 years they lived on the flat tops of Mesa Verde, migrating to and from the area with changes of the season. It wasn't until their final century of occupation that they built the cliff dwellings that revolutionized their social structure. Hunter-gatherers became farmers, storing their food & water, remaining throughout the winter protected by the cave and walls they built of sandstone brick & mud mortar. Less time was needed for hunting leaving more time to specialise in weaving, leatherwork, pottery etc. and the economy of the Mesa Verde community became strong and complex. At the peak of their civilization, 60 to 100 people lived at the Cliff Palace at any given time, with 129 rooms and 8 kivas (ceremonial rooms), one of the largest villages of the 600+ identified cliff dwellings in the area. And then suddenly, in the span of a generation or two, they left their homes and moved away.
Archaeologists worked out this was most likely caused by an 80 year drought, combined with the deforestation and depletion of local resources, and rumours of flourishing neighbour communities. But as the tour guide made a valid point, this ancient civilization joins a list of several others that all perished at their peaks, which has a bearing on our civilization today, where if we don't manage our consumption of resources & manipulation of the natural environment, we may face a similar fate.
After Mesa Verde we drove to Cortez where we stopped to cook a late (3:30pm) lunch in the town park. While Kevin broke out his awesome little primus stove that can burn just about anything for fuel, I noticed several utes with huge tanks on their trays occasionally driving up under a strange hanging pipe & filling up with what looked like water. I walked over to check it out, and met this older fellow, Jim Powell, who rocked up with another huge empty tank. I had a chat to him and he told me a story about when he & his wife met an Australian couple while traveling back in the day who lent them (total strangers) money after they'd lost their travelers checks. He thought that we Australians are the kindest people in all the world! With half a dozen teeth missing in his warm genuine smile he explained to me how he lives on a property where there is no water, and he has to haul water every day or so. Three quarters buys you 300 gallons of water from the town water station in the park. After his tank overflowed everywhere and I spotted his tank's tap wasn't turned off properly, our chat was stopped short by another dude who arrived for water so I shook his hand and waved him off, thinking for the zillionth time how fortunate and proud I am to be Australian in this country that regards us so highly.
Driving on that afternoon was right up there among the most awesome drives I've ever done. Skirting the northwestern side of Mesa Verde's cliffs and Ute Mountain, lit up orange by the late afternoon sun, we got to Four Corners half an hour before close time. Four corners is the point where the borders of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona meet, the only four border junction in the United States. After getting the touristy photos of one hand and one foot in each state, I bought a t-shirt and a fridge magnet, drove in a circle around the monument and headed off into Arizona. And what an introduction to Arizona it was, the sun setting below high altitude clouds that made half the sky turn yellow, orange, red, pink, blue and indigo, as I drove along the straight western roads directly into the sunset. We passed the Chuska Mountains to our left and could see countless other Ute-Mountain lookalike rock formations & mesas. When night came as we passed several Navajo villages and towns on our way to Chinle, I was surprised to see single bright yellow lights dotted all over the place. Here, each house or group of houses have a single flood light, standing twice as high as the roofs, as if to mark their position so the owners can find it in the dark! Some clustered together, others way out by themselves. Kevin was startled when he spotted a black horse just off the shoulder of the road, the first of several animals we passed where there were no fences or anything I could see that would stop animals from crossing where I was doing 80mph. And I thought the New Mexicans were crazy for not having signposts for half of their roads!
I helped Kevin set up his tent at the free campgrounds near the entrance to Canyon De Chelly (pronounced canyon-de-shay) and he fixed dinner while I emptied stuff out of the Jeep to sleep in the back. Kevin was worried about a couple of huge RVs near us, I asked why, he said last time he camped around RVs the owners had their generators going all night. Sure enough, 5 mins later an old couple returned to the RV opposite us and click whirrr there goes the generator. Within 20 mins the place started to reek of fumes too, I was glad to be sleeping in the car. I thought it was rude & offensive of RV owners to do that around people with tents, and thought of how much better my parent's caravan setup is with solar power and batteries. I was barely able to keep warm overnight & woke with a start as Kevin opened the rear glass at dawn to photograph me sleeping in the Jeep! It was only 3C on Kev's watch thermometer so after a hot breakfast of oatmeal & water we packed quickly and rolled out to the visitor center on the South Rim Drive.
Canyon De Chelly compared to Mesa Verde is less for interesting history and more about spectacular scenery. Sheer smooth cliffs of red & brown sandstone, most overhanging past vertical, dropped all the way to the flat canyon floor. In many cases there was no rubble or rockslides at the base, the cliff rose straight above the flat ground at a 90 degree angle. There were Navajo cliff dwellings too, and the canyon floor is still farmed by them today, access is restricted unless you have a Navajo guide with you. Since it was perfectly calm, I decided to get Kevin to try a couple of shots of me standing (well, kneeling) at the very edge of these sheer cliffs. I was fine looking sideways at Kevin, but had to focus and keep perfect balance, even control my breathing, because if I looked 1 inch past my right foot I was staring over the edge of the cliff to the canyon floor 500 odd feet below, straight down! Argh gives me vertigo thinking back at it!
We met two Navajo kids, Newton & Dion Martinez, and chatted to them for a while. They get dropped off on some of their spare days from school by their mother, and sell Navajo Art they paint onto flat sandstone rocks taken from the Canyon floor. Newton showed us his $25 rock of paintings and told us an 8min long story with the pictures! His accent was so cool but I didn't want to buy a rock as it's just something that's gonna get broken in my travels, but I got my wallet and Kevin & I each gave them $5 for being little champions. As we progressed through several lookouts, the canyon progressively got deeper and more impressive with 600ft, then 700ft sheer cliffs. Finally we came to Spider Rock, the pinnacle of Canyon De Chelly, a thin vertical tower of red sandstone rising 800ft above the middle of the canyon floor. Again we got up to more mischief climbing onto boulders on the edge of the cliff for more mad photos, while a group of 3 older German tourists I'd met earlier watched us, shaking their heads & calling out 'nein nein!'
From Canyon De Chelly we went off the beaten track to the backroads of AZ making our way down to Window Rock in the town of..Window Rock. My initial worries about this route proved unnecessary as the dirt road was maintained, the GPS knew where it was going & we only passed 2 trucks over the whole 2 hours. Kevin had even made a trip to Tulsa prior to leaving to get 'protection' and we were rolling with a Glock .40 in the back just in case. Window Rock was cool, a large circular natural arch, and the site of an impressive WWII monument to the Navajo Code Talkers. Below I've copied the transcript below the sculpture of the Navajo Code Talker that tells their story:
During World War II at a time when the Japanese possessed the ability to break almost any American military code, over 400 Navajos, with 29 being the original Navajo Code Talkers, stepped forward and developed the most significant and successful military code of the time using their native language. So successful was this innovative code that military commanders credited it with saving the lives of countless American soldiers and with the successful engagements of the U.S. in the battles of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and paved the way to victory for Allied Forces in the Pacific Theater. "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima", these were the words of Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal Officer.
Far from their homes, these brave young men served our nation with honor. Sadly, the tale of their exploits remained a closely guarded secret for decades in the even that the Navajo Code Talkers unique talents would be needed again. Many Code Talkers have passed on never knowing of the honours a grateful nation are now bestowed upon their remaining brothers. It was not until 1968 when the Navajo Code was declassified.Next, we drove south east through building afternoon thunderstorms and eventually emerged onto the vast flat plains of San Augustin, formerly a lake, where the National Radio Astronomy Observary (NRAO) and the Very Large Array (VLA) is centered. Highway 60 runs dead straight for some 20 miles across the middle of the Y-shaped Array, and soon the huge dish antennas were visible stretching right out into the distance. Upon our arrival we learnt a bunch of stuff, the array was currently in it's largest A-configuration, which meant that each of the 27 antennas were spread along the Y-arms a distance of 13 miles (21 km). This is the most sensitive setup; the signals received are processed and combined with the equivalent sensitivity of a single 36 km antenna. Each of the 230 ton 25m diameter dish assemblies are almost constantly in use, the Array is manned and making observations 24-7, we saw them change angles a couple of times while we were underneath one. Changing array configurations takes a week or so to complete (the array generally remains in a particular configuration for several months), each moves along rail tracks between docking pads with the assistance of strange red vehicles. The vehicles supply power to the antenna on the move, as internally the receivers are cooled to 15 Kelvin (-427 F) to reduce internal noise & vibration that distorts the weak signals from space.
On the walking tour, we came across the Whisper Gallery, which is just two dishes spaced about 30ft apart facing each other. Kevin walked to one and I walked to the other and as soon as you walk in front of one dish, you can hear what's going on at the other! It was so cool, if I put my head at the focus point of the dish, I could hear Kevin whisper in my right ear, when he was 30ft to my left facing the other way!
Walking around the tour I deliberately went past the 'restricted area' sign because I wanted to photograph the afternoon sun behind one of the dishes, which soon resulted in a security guard driving over to kindly tell me where the visitor area was.
Driving back through Socorro up to Albuquerque Kevin & I tested each other on the states & capital cities of our countries, when I asked Kevin about Tasmania, he thought that it was off the northeast coast somewhere! That was funny but to his credit he knew more than most locals about where stuff was. At the Hyatt in Albuquerque after days on the road we were looking forward to some 4 star luxury, but we arrived a half hour after the pool area & spa closed! After hunting around for indoor spas and spending 2mins in a crappy sauna, I said "we'll never know if we never ask." So, decked out in boardshorts, towel over shoulder, we walked through the ritzy hallways past dudes in suits and ladies in dresses to the reception, and after being initially denied by the girl behind the counter, I turned on my best Aussie "accent" and reasoned that we'd been on the road for hours and were only staying the night, here for the balloon festival, and she gave in and went to ask security if it was OK. Security said they would come down & let us know (ie. check us out first), so we hung out in the lobby for several minutes drawing looks from hotel guests & staff. Eventually a funny pairing of a short & an enormous security guard who resembled Schwarzenegger came over and escorted us to the spa, woohoo!
Quick sleep, 5am and we were back up & at it! Taking our small amount of gear back and checking out, we made for the Balloon Fiesta Park, early to get sorted out and not miss the dawn patrol. Kevin bought some brekky and I got an awesome hot chocolate. I think we were a little delirious from all these early starts, because for some reason, everything seemed funny. Ridiculously funny. A kid's slippery slide in the form of an inflatable sinking Titanic was there, and as the crowds increased I went about asking people trying to track down any Australian teams. I saw the flags of the participating nations and spotted my flag! We tracked down information and found the list of pilots and their launch sites, but unfortunately there were no Aussies; the flag I saw belonged to a single NZ team, the missing Commonwealth Star hidden in the folds of the limp flag in the calm air. I was really annoyed actually, all these crews from all these countries, and NOBODY from Australia.
Kevin & I made our way onto the field as crews began driving to their launch sites on one edge of the field. Eventually after a loudspeaker announcement, generators whirred to life, portable lights came on and large fans began blowing air into the balloons. I'd never seen a hot air balloon launch before, it's pretty amazing. When the balloons were half inflated lying on their side on the ground & crews with torches had checked there were no tears or knots, the pilot lit the burners and fired roaring bursts of yellow and blue jets of flame into the balloons. The balloons would suddenly glow their bright colours, then drop back into darkness. Members of the crew would hold the flaps of the balloon up as the half-foot thick jet of flame shot into the balloon barely a meter from their arms. One by one, the balloons began to lift and tilt upright, crews moved quickly and efficiently to anchor the basket, the pilot jumping inside rocking back as it swung upright, intently focused on the rate of lift the burner was causing so as to not overdo it and need to rely on the final anchor - a rope or chain to the support vehicle.
Soon a dozen balloons were vertical on the ground, and it was time for the famous dawn patrol balloon glow. Announcers counted down and all together the balloons fired, lighting up the sky with their shapes & colours, as the slightest hint of light appeared in the east. They also fired in bursts, each balloon flickering on and off like a series of enormous Christmas lights. Then, with one extended burst, the first balloon shot up into the sky really quickly, the rest following one at a time. Each pilot had special objectives, test out an elevation and report wind conditions back to the ground. The dawn patrol eventually became hard to see, visible mainly by the lead lights that hung from their baskets, until more hot air was needed and a burst of flame would light one up in stunning, silent brilliance. That is, silent until Kevin judged that we were far enough away from any bystanders, and audibly passed wind. Unbeknownst to him, a professional photographer was only meters behind him, he looked up from his tripod mounted camera and said over his shoulder "hey, did you kill something?"
Later, when the crowds took to the fields walking around dozens and dozens of crews setting up, inflating balloons and taking off in wave after wave, the magnitude of this event as the world's largest balloon festival and the U.S.'s most photographed even became clear. Balloons of awesome design mixed in with the sheer numbers of standard balloons began filling the pre-dawn sky, each flying their country flag from the basket. The day was Wednesday which I'd chosen to see the fiesta because it was the Flight Of The Nations mass ascension, where the international participants are given the honour of launching first before the U.S. crews. I spotted the Darth Vader balloon, after hearing a crew chatting earlier about him being the largest balloon registered for the event. Storm troopers marched through the crowds and someone said "Where did you get those costumes?" to which one replied "The Emperor." And later on I saw Boba Fet walk past. He had an awesome costume, really accurate, except it was obvious that he was in fact a skinny she underneath. Kevin said "hey look, it's a Boba Fet-ette" and I said "yeah, she has a Boba Fet-ish".
Footage I took on YouTube:
The mass ascension went into full swing after dawn, and it was amazing. Balloons being launched were squeezed side to side, while balloons down low were traveling in opposite direction to balloons up high, and behind every balloon in the foreground were dozens of balloons trailing off into the distance. The balloon fiesta park in Albuquerque is the site of the world's largest balloon festival for a good reason. Geographically, the mountain ranges and plains around the area create a consistent 'box effect', where air between low and middle elevations travel in opposite directions, allowing balloon pilots to navigate with high accuracy, often allowing them to land in the same area from where they took off. All the same, balloons ended up all over the place, and at the height of the launch, balloons were visible 180 degrees in both directions and were making landings all over town. When its clear a balloon isn't gonna make it back to the launch field, the chase crew packs up the gear, jumps in their ute or truck and heads off around the city tracking & eventually intercepting the balloon to assist with the landing. Three days previous, high winds caused a number of crashes, injuries and even a death, where a balloon got caught on power lines and a gust of wind tipped the basket, causing a lady to fall out 70 odd feet to the ground. Kevin and I were having breakfast in Durango at Quality Inn when we saw that on the news.
After the several hundred balloons had taken off there were a couple of other things to see before we left. I chatted to Deirdre, a mounted policewoman who drew a bit of a crowd. Fully armed and on horseback, she explained how they are part of the tactical division, used for crowd control & aligned with other tactical units like S.W.A.T. and the Airborne. Another bunch of police were gathered together in front of the Children's Network Balloon, a dozen cars and bikes, more than one person joked along the lines of 'that guy sure did something wrong'. They were arranged for a photo shoot as the Albuquerque police do charity work with the Children's Network, and I managed to get a bit of a look at the Sheriff motorbikes and the new 2007 model Police Mustangs.
And then all that was left was another tedious drive all the way back to Oklahoma and the end of an action-packed fast-paced holiday! I've written a fair bit so, until next time...ciao.
