Homeward Bound

Traveling through New Mexico, we stopped at the town of Cuervo to have lunch.  At least the name sounded promising.  We had to park out front as parking in town was limited.

The main street into town had a couple of potholes and needed some minor repairs.

We found the church but it was closed.  I noticed there was still electricity running to it. This appeared to be the only building that was locked and still being used.

There were several properties that probably could be bought relatively cheap.  These were wood sided and needed a little paint and, and, and . . .

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But, if you are from the South, you would probably want a more substantial home, made of brick or stone.  These were available here also.  These properties also sported some great views of the mine tailings.

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For the budget minded, there were some fixer-uppers that needed a ton of TLC.  This one was landscaped in “desert trash”.  I picked up a handful of SCA* glass pieces for Jason, dating these structures to the early 1900s.

*SCA-sorry, glass gcollector’s term -during the early 1900s, glasshouses introduced manganese into the glass batch to insure its clarity. Unfortunately, this glass, when exposed to sunlight for a period of time will turn a light Sun Colared Ameythist.  This practice was discontinued shortly thereafter.

The landscaping was natural, as would be expected in the desert environment.  That was a fencepost under the cactus.

And some that were beyond fixer-upper status.  Buy the land and build a new home. This home was originally adobe and had a stone floor.

The city water works was in need of repairs, probably minor ones.

The well was indeed dry.  Being dry made it easier to find anyone or anything that happened to fall in since it was missing the cover.  This may be a OSHA violation.

At last, the most important building in any town, and I found it!

I met a gentleman there, way out back, with a metal detector who was “prospecting” but hadn’t found anything.  It was kind of startling to round a corner out here and come face to face with someone you weren’t expecting.  I have to improve my situational awareness (Jason).

We continued on to Albuquerque for the evening, staying at the Sam Walton RV Park (aka the WalMart parking lot).  We watched a great fireworks display that went on for a long time, but could not figure out the reason.

In the morning I went out and saw this above us.  We were parked with a couple from New Brunswick who filled us in on what was going on.  The fireworks were displayed at the closing of the event for the day.  We stumbled into the world-famous  Albuquerque Balloon Festival.  Boy, there were a lot of balloons in the air!

Some of the balloons were coming right over us and coming in low.  We later found out they were landing a couple of blocks away.

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We moved to a more upscale location to watch the event.  I am sure we made the homeowners happy that we parked in front of their million dollar homes.  There was signage limiting through vehicles to five tons or less that I observed later but the view really is better!

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We enjoyed some great views of the balloons passing overhead.

We changed locations again, driving until we saw a field that looked like it was a landing zone and parked in a strip mall.  We watched this Rocky Road balloon come in and land.

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The Rocky Road balloon was drug for a hundred feet or so before it was stopped.  The riders must have really enjoyed this.

This second guy was coming in very low.  A local police officer arrived and promptly closed the road to traffic as the basket would have clipped any car going by.  He hit pretty hard and bounced a couple of times before stopping (see the last photo).  Cathy found some neat flowers which looked like lavender but we were told they were called Texas Rangers.  They looked like weeds to me so I pulled out a bunch to try to replant at home. Cathy though the officer might not be happy about us pulling the flowers, so I gave them to her to carry.  After all, I had my camera.  The officer was more concerned with crowd safety than two weed thieves.

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Here are impact spots from the balloon above.

The passengers in the above balloon had to actually work putting the balloon on the truck after their ride.  That was a lot of people in that little basket!

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We continued on to Arkansas, with heavy rain all the way from Texas, through Oklahoma and now into Russellville, AR.   We passed many streets, highways and parking lots that were completely flooded, we saw washouts and water running over the highways.  Every low spot in the area is now a lake.  We should rest well tonight with the torrential rain, the lightning and the thunder lulling us to sleep.