Our first full day in New Mexico was pretty fantastic. M and I debated on doing a hot air Balloon ride. We both wanted to but it was pretty expensive. In the end we said it is a once in a life time experience and we were in one of the best places in the world to do it.
We got up at like 6:30AM to get picked up for the ride. We learned the only real time you do a Balloon ride is right at dawn. We got some fantastic photos of the ballon being inflated. It was a pretty big ballon. It fit 12 people and for our ride there were 10 of us.
There is so much i could write about this experience. It was simply fantastic. We got so many awsome photos. There were 3 other ballons launching when we did so we got to get a lot of them and the scenery. We got well over an hour of airtime before we set down right off a soccer field.
I learned that once we land you never just jump out or else the ballon will get lighter and fly away. Don’t worry I didn’t try it but the pilot was very informative. Once it was safe several of us got out and moved the ballon away from a building so we could deflate it. It was interesting work helping to deflate and put away a 260,000 cubic foot ballon into a big bag.
We were done and back at the hotel well before lunch time. We decided to drive to the Range Cafe for some lunch. It was nearby the hotel and got good reviews in the travel books and everyone at the hotel suggested it. We were glad that we did. The lunch was good, but for desert M and I had a piece of chocolate layer cake that we both agreed was THE BEST WE EVER HAD. From two people who love chocolate that is a stellar endorsement. M has photos of me before and after. They are pretty funny.
For the afternoon we lounged by the pool. We were going to go horse back ridding at 6pm but it was very stormy so they canceled it for the night. We rescheduled for tomorrow.
For dinner we were lazy and stayed at the bar restaurant at the hotel since the nice restaurant was closed. We had low key food. M had a cheese plate and wine and I had a delicious hot dog. Go figure that New Mexico could make good hot dogs.