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Albuquerque balloon festival (1 Viewer)

rascal

Footballguy
Family (wife, then 9yr old boy, and 4 year old boy/girl twins) are thinking about going to October 2018 festival.  

Anyone been and have any recommendations/thoughts/etc?  Tia.

 
Book a room yesterday
:goodposting:

Also, book a flight early. 

Wife is from ABQ and in-laws still live there. We go back about 1/2 dozen times a year. Food is crazy delicious (try to stop by Sadie's on 4th st.) Been to the Balloon Fiesta several times (been a couple of years since my last one). Awesome experience. Very cool being in the middle of all the balloons as they are inflating them and watching them take off. Some people will even ask you to help. Either hold a tie down line, help launch or you could even volunteer to be on a chase crew. Try to go for more than a couple of days because if they have "inclement" weather the balloons will not fly that day. By inclement, that could just be a mild wind (10-15 MPH). Also, take a morning off and don't go to the Balloon Park but find a location a few miles southwest of the park and watch all the balloons from there. It can get overwhelming trying to see all of the balloons when you are at the park. This way you can get a better view of the balloons. Again, just very cool seeing the sky filled with all of the balloons. 

 
Thursday is "special shapes" day and always seemed, after it got big enough that each year didnt set a new Mass Ascension record (which was the thrill in it for decades), to be the funnest, most tactile launch day. I know that you're not considered a Burquer until you've chasecrewed (1981 for me), but that's a lot of work for a tourist. I'm sure they have a website now to check that out.

I'll never forget my first encounter with a mass ascension - didnt pay much attention to media then (had just moved down to Albq from a commune up north) so didnt know anything about Balloon Fiesta my first year. 1979 I was working in a detox unit @ the old St Joseph's Hospital and the event was then held in a city park about a mile from downtown. This Saturday morning, a Navajo in DTs runs out of his room screaming that dragons are chasing him. Not an unusual hallucination for a detox unit, but a few minutes later we see these weird dotting shadows over the windows and start to hear the dragonbreath of butane heaters roaring toward us. Me & a nurse ran up to the roof and, as we were in the flight path of those ascenders going toward the river (the tradition is still for those wanting to see how far they can go to head E toward Sandia Crest, the others go to the Rio Grande with long-handled ladels and try to maneuver to get a scoop of river water and still get enough lift to clear the bosque after) we were treated to a dragon parade of dozens of multi-colored delights floating directly over us. We were so overwhelmed by the enchantment of it all that we instinctively started making out, even though we barely knew each other, beginning an affair that went on&off for 25 years. good times...

 
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Anyone with some thoughts on 2019 balloon fiesta?  It's like a 9 day event in October (5-13).

as I would likely only make a 4 day trip, I take it the last 4 days are better.  Any thoughts?

 
You know, if you are not going to commit for the full 9 days than why are you even bothering to go.  That is a real half-### effort on your part.

Also, I don't have a clue.

 
Anyone with some thoughts on 2019 balloon fiesta?  It's like a 9 day event in October (5-13).

as I would likely only make a 4 day trip, I take it the last 4 days are better.  Any thoughts?
As wikkid mentioned, the "special shapes" day is probably the coolest special event to hit.  I think otherwise days don't really matter, except for weather, but there's little that can be done to plan around that.  I went back in 2016 (my in-laws live in ABQ, so had a free place to stay), but had some bad rain luck.  I can try to help on ABQ in general -- I'm out there pretty often, and just got back from there.

 
I might be moving there

:popcorn:
Did you? I might be as well. I'd love some advice on where to live where to avoid (I would prefer to live downtown/near university in a high rise if ABQ has them) etc. Anything else I should know would be great. Also @bananafish, did you live there at one point? I might be mistaken on this.

 
Did you? I might be as well. I'd love some advice on where to live where to avoid (I would prefer to live downtown/near university in a high rise if ABQ has them) etc. Anything else I should know would be great. Also @bananafish, did you live there at one point? I might be mistaken on this.
Downtown is not the safest part of the city to live in.  If you are interested in more of an urban type of experience (walking distance to shops/restaurants/etc), Nob Hill might be a neighborhood to check out (close to the UNM campus).  Still a decent amount of crime there too though.

 
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Did you? I might be as well. I'd love some advice on where to live where to avoid (I would prefer to live downtown/near university in a high rise if ABQ has them) etc. Anything else I should know would be great. Also @bananafish, did you live there at one point? I might be mistaken on this.
Some of that down by the Zoo, but i feel about downtown Burque the way i do the New England Patriots - it was so lame for soooo long that i simply cant digest the new love for downtown development or Huning-Highland or whatever the hot new part of town that once was a sad old part of town is. 

Albuquerque is a city that was populated by tuberculosis (a row of TB hospitals on the slope between downtown & UNM) and radiators (that wouldn't make Rte 66 or I-40 to LA). An accidental town. It was lovely when it was the northernmost brown town in the USA when i moved there in '79, but if you're wanting to live in the coolest section over that which suits you best, you are violating the spirit of extraordinary ordinary upon which it is based . Unlike Santa Fe, which can be cool no matter where you are, Albuquerque is Omaha with hills, a blank canvas. Find your corner or don't bother.

 
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Some of that down by the Zoo, but i feel about downtown Burque the way i do the New England Patriots - it was so lame for soooo long that i simply cant digest the new love for downtown development or Huning-Highland or whatever the hot new part of town that once was a sad old part of town is. 

Albuquerque is a city that was populated by tuberculosis (a row of TB hospitals on the slope between downtown & UNM) and radiators (that wouldn't make Rte 66 or I-40 to LA). An accidental town. It was lovely when it was the northernmost brown town in the USA when i moved there in '79, but if you're wanting to live in the coolest section over that which suits you best, you are violating the spirit of extraordinary ordinary upon which it is based . Unlike Santa Fe, which can be cool no matter where you are, Albuquerque is Omaha with hills, a blank canvas. Find your corner or don't bother.
I was at a restaurant in Huning-Highland last week.  Definitely a neighborhood on the way up.  Pretty solid food there, but solid food all over ABQ.

Agree with your post.  I don't think I'd want to be locked in a condo or high-rise in ABQ.  Housing is pretty cheap, and it's not like there is much of a yard that needs upkeep in the desert.  If I ever moved out there, I'd find an adobe house with a nice backyard view of Sandia, which I can stare at while drinking some Elevated IPAs and grilling up some homemade green chile cheeseburgers whenever my heart desires.

 
 I was at a restaurant in Huning-Highland last week.  Definitely a neighborhood on the way up.  Pretty solid food there, but solid food all over ABQ.

Agree with your post.  I don't think I'd want to be locked in a condo or high-rise in ABQ.  Housing is pretty cheap, and it's not like there is much of a yard that needs upkeep in the desert.  If I ever moved out there, I'd find an adobe house with a nice backyard view of Sandia, which I can stare at while drinking some Elevated IPAs and grilling up some homemade green chile cheeseburgers whenever my heart desires.
Okay, I have an open mind for living in a different area. I just figured I'd want to live where younger professionals do. I have no wife or family and I don't want to be surrounded by that. Is west of the river a good place to look?

 
I was at a restaurant in Huning-Highland last week.  Definitely a neighborhood on the way up.  Pretty solid food there, but solid food all over ABQ.

Agree with your post.  I don't think I'd want to be locked in a condo or high-rise in ABQ.  Housing is pretty cheap, and it's not like there is much of a yard that needs upkeep in the desert.  If I ever moved out there, I'd find an adobe house with a nice backyard view of Sandia, which I can stare at while drinking some Elevated IPAs and grilling up some homemade green chile cheeseburgers whenever my heart desires.
I looooved the neighborhood i lived in from '97-'11 (lived around TB Row/UNM in the 70/80s). It was the first neighborhood N of Lomas NE, built in '46 by Sandia Labs for its employees. The streets straddled a hill and, the farther up the hill, the nicer the houses. Mesa Verde was duplexes for the lab techs, Morningside nice houses for the up & comers, Del Sol for dept heads, Manana for VPs and an estancia (since torn down) on Estrellita atop the hill for the Big Boss. Such a sunny goofy housing concept before sprawl took over.

 
I have a love/hate relationship with Albuquerque, but the balloon festival is well worth going to. It's incredible, especially when it's dark in the morning and all the balloons are lighting up. Then you'll be getting gas in the afternoon and one will land across the street.

 The food is awesome and the natural beauty incredible, but the state as a whole is dirt poor, crimey and the politics is maddening (not in a left/right sort of way but a stupidity/inefficiency sort of way). Someone told me it now leads the nation in car theft :shrug:  It's been a decade since I lived there but around UNM is reasonably safe and Nob Hill which someone mentioned would probably be my choice, or the wealthy suburbs towards the mountains if you can afford it (which is probably not hard as ABQ is cheap). Where are you working @Dedfin? If I remember right you're some sort of scientist. UNM is excels in the sciences which is rather impressive given the circumstances.

I'd rather live in Santa Fe which is much nicer but also more expensive. It has the best parts of New Mexico and the grinding poverty/violence is better hidden. It's also a stone's throw from Los Alamos National Lab which I hear is a good gig if you can get it. One caveat is my alma mater is there so it has a special, idyllic place in my heart which probably clouds my judgement. It was a wonderful place to go to school.

I've got a lot to say about New Mexico and in my mind's eye I could see retiring there. If you have any particular questions or want me to expound further i'd be happy to.
I'm in the physics business. I'd be consulting for Sandia and LANL mostly. (I read your post about your dad working in the NIF which is super cool, you should be proud your dad is a science baller). I could just live in Santa Fe, but I'm really more into things bigger cities can provide. Although ABQ won't do everything I want it to do, it's more than those smaller towns. That being said, I don't know a thing about Santa Fe. Maybe I should look there.

 
Okay, I have an open mind for living in a different area. I just figured I'd want to live where younger professionals do. I have no wife or family and I don't want to be surrounded by that. Is west of the river a good place to look?
I left in '11, so i might be wrong now, but W of the river is all Sprawful. I would rent close to work & shop. The "wine country" of the N Valley, the gentrified area around Bulldog City, Nob Hill, Foothills, Corrales, Placitas, the zoo area/Old Town is lovely (that's where the old Mestizo-hating Castilian Spanish gentry lived when i moved there in the 70s) or carve your own spot. Just make it for you, not hipness. Hipness is wrong (off thee to Santa Fe), cool is right in Burque.

 
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I'm in the physics business. I'd be consulting for Sandia and LANL mostly. (I read your post about your dad working in the NIF which is super cool, you should be proud your dad is a science baller). I could just live in Santa Fe, but I'm really more into things bigger cities can provide. Although ABQ won't do everything I want it to do, it's more than those smaller towns. That being said, I don't know a thing about Santa Fe. Maybe I should look there.
Sante Fe is a bit too artsy for my taste, but YMMV.  If you want to be up by LANL, I would take the Los Alamos and White Rock area directly.  I'm not a scientist, so not much for me to do out there job-wise, but I told my wife that I would love to retire to that area.  

You may find it a bit small if you prefer big city life though.

 
two words: Jemez

natural hot springs, decent fishing, one of the largest calderas in the country, tent rocks, best swimming hole in NM (jumpoff points up to 70 ft high), reasonable real estate, less snow than the other Central/Northern mountain regions and interesting citizenry - Pueblos & Navajos, hippies, survivalists, panners & pioneers

 
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When you lived there did you ever meet/socialize with any of the Unsers (the family of race car drivers)?

 
When you lived there did you ever meet/socialize with any of the Unsers (the family of race car drivers)?
Yeah, one of my gfs had a rather successful curio shop and was looking to invest the profits. Bobby Jr. was fronting for the developers of Rio Rancho - 85 sq mi of nothing, then called Little Brooklyn cuz a NY-style deli and a dozen houses filled w east coast refugees was all there was, so i met him a coupla times at smokers for that. Lisa invested, I didn't. There's now a major Intel plant and 100,000+ people living in Rio Rancho. She retired @ 45, i'm living in my parents' basement. Just handshakes & chatter w Bobby, but the Unsers were deities in Burque, still dirt-tracked for fun in the area well past their Indy fame.

 
Going to Albuquerque in a few weeks for a conference.  Any must sees/dos?

 
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Going to Albuquerque in a few weeks for a conference.  Any must sees/dos?
green chili cheese fries at Bob's Burgers, maybe? 

the only absolutely magical things to Albuquerque are being fed by an abuelita, the three spring weeks when Sandia Crest is green (only for locals), sunsets after August thundershowers, the balloons and green chili. there are as few reasons to visit as there are many to live there.

 
Going to Albuquerque in a few weeks for a conference.  Any must sees/dos?
I’m not sure any of these are “musts” but some to get started.  

Activities:

  • Breaking Bad Tour (I haven’t done this personally; I did a self-guided one driving past the filming spots using Google Maps, and stopped for a breakfast burrito at the Twisters location that serves as Los Pollos Hermanos). 
  • Sandia Peak Tramway (although I only made it to the tramway station before deciding “nope, not going up that”).
Mid-range New Mexican restaurants

  • Padilla’s
  • El Pinto
  • Sadie’s
Cheap Eats (many of these are chains, but not sure where you are staying, so maybe a chain is more helpful)

  • Frontier (standard college dive, across from UNM.  Good burritos.  Fiesta Burger with a Frontier roll on the side is my go-to)
  • Blake’s Lotaburger (not that great a burger on its own (marginally better than a Burger King patty), but gets lifted up with the fresh green chile on it)
  • Golden Pride (breakfast burrito with green chile, hash browns, eggs, and cheese - same that they serve at Frontier)
  • Five Star Burgers (I get the Taos burger with crispy green chile)
  • Weck’s (for a heuvos rancheros breakfast fix)
Breweries

  • La Cumbre (I mentioned the Elevated IPA upthread)
  • Marble
  • (There are also lots of newer breweries now that I haven’t been to yet.)
Grab a bag of piñon coffee and a box of piñon chocolates while out there too.

 
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wikkidpissah said:
Yeah, one of my gfs had a rather successful curio shop and was looking to invest the profits. Bobby Jr. was fronting for the developers of Rio Rancho - 85 sq mi of nothing, then called Little Brooklyn cuz a NY-style deli and a dozen houses filled w east coast refugees was all there was, so i met him a coupla times at smokers for that. Lisa invested, I didn't. There's now a major Intel plant and 100,000+ people living in Rio Rancho. She retired @ 45, i'm living in my parents' basement. Just handshakes & chatter w Bobby, but the Unsers were deities in Burque, still dirt-tracked for fun in the area well past their Indy fame.
Such is our lot in life for opportunities missed....or sumpin like that. (trying to turn a phrase like wikkid but coming up way short)

The Unsers are still a really big deal here in Indianapolis. They were probably somewhat aloof and arrogant in their racing days (well earned because they were bad asses and survived a profession that maimed and killed so many). but they've mellowed with age, appreciate their fans and are genuinely nice people imo. 

 
Such is our lot in life for opportunities missed....or sumpin like that. (trying to turn a phrase like wikkid but coming up way short)

The Unsers are still a really big deal here in Indianapolis. They were probably somewhat aloof and arrogant in their racing days (well earned because they were bad asses and survived a profession that maimed and killed so many). but they've mellowed with age, appreciate their fans and are genuinely nice people imo. 
The Indy guy who always fascinated me was the guy who built the Brickyard - Carl Fisher. First a bicycle dealer who promoted his product by riding his bikes on a tightrope across Pennsylvania St then a Stoddard-Dayton car dealer who ballyhooed his buggies by using them as gondolas to hot air balloons, he struck gold in car headlights and built the Indy track twice - 2nd time of brick, of course. Then he built the first two interstate highways - the Dixie (cuz he wintered in Fla) and the Lincoln (first cross-country). Then, vacationing in Fla, he saw a half-completed but abandoned bridge across to a sandbar that contained nothing but mangroves & an avocado farm. BOOM - two years later he'd turned that sandbar into Miami Beach (hotels, polo clubs, golf courses, had Pres Harding there for a round of golf with an elephant as their caddy). He tried to do the same in Montauk Long Island, - digging a deepwater harbor so Atlantic crossers could save a day by docking there & taking the train into NYC - but a hurricane wiped out the Miami properties he had mortgaged to begin his new project and that ruined him. Still, a helluva run for a helluva guy (smoked cigars & chewed tobacco simultaneously). Twenty years ago, i tried to write it all up for Tom Hanks (who i knew slightly - he was friends w a gf's fam - and hosted in Albq when he was here in the 80s w the Happy Days softball team) but it never came to anything. One of the great early-20thC characters, though.

 
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I really regret that we never consummated a cornhole when we both lived in Albuquerque back in '08 (I still have the pm's I think). I was a mess and kind of a hermit but I would have forced myself out of the house if I had known what I was missing. You've a brilliant mind, sir.
kind of you to say, but it likely wouldnt have added up to much. though i walked my errands every day - Tully's for meat, Sunshine Market for grocery, Dolce Vita for breadstuffs - i was very much a hermit, too, and '08 was one of the worst years of my life (two heart attacks). but i wouldnta said no to a beer now & then if i was outta bed, i spose.

 

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