Finally, I have something to blog about!
Albuquerque: home of green chile, breakfast burritos, and..... (drum roll) the BALLOON FIESTA. Kevin has never been to the Balloon Fiesta before (unacceptable), so we decided to make a trip down there and check it out. We mostly lounged around, played games and watched movies with the fam, ate lots of New Mexican food (mmmm), and petted Snoop and Geer. We also spent the night in Santa Fe with mom and dad. In Santa Fe we shopped a little, ate at the Blue Corn Cafe, enjoyed the hot tub in 30 degree weather, and went to the brand new museum next to the Governer's Palace. It was so huge that we probably didn't even see a third of it. We also took a tour of the Gov's Palace, which I've never done before, so I enjoyed refreshing my knowledge of New Mexico history. It was a lot of fun. Dad bought me an opalite pendant for my birthday, and Erica made a chain for it. Mom spoiled me for my birthday and bought me a bunch a stuff plus a cake, since I'm never in NM for my birthday anymore. Saves on shipping ;) Thanks Mom and Dad and Erica for the cool birthday gifts!
Kevin tucked Geer in after we got up that
morning--she slept on our bed every night.
The Balloon Fiesta was fun--pretty much the same as ever. Waking up pre-5am, driving in traffic, walking to the tents to get hot chocolate and breakfast burritos while you freeze your buns off, watching the dawn patrol "all glow in 10... 9... 8..." to entertain the crowds, and then finally wandering around while hundreds of balloons take off at the same time! Nobody fell out of any balloons while we were there, so that's good. I had to use the restrooms there for the first time in my life, and I swear I spent at least a half hour waiting in line while watching all the men walk right in to their bathroom. Blasphemy. Hasn't anybody caught on that you need to build about 3 times as many womens restrooms as you do mens?? If you have to pee on your way to to the balloon park, I would recommend peeing in a bush. Here's a couple bazillion pictures for you to look at before you move on to the rest of my post:
We left after the "first wave," so I guess that means we only saw about half of the balloons.
and now, some videos...
"All Burn"--I prefer the flicker burn, but it is
what it is....
Giant freaking cow takes flight!
Darth Vader uses the power of the force--Turn up your
speakers for this one ;)
If you've ever wondered how they blow up
a hot air balloon, this vid is for you!
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After about 10 days or so having fun in ABQ, Kevin and I drove up to Denver to see a DJ named Armin Van Buuren live at BETA Nightclub. For those of you who aren't Techno savvy, he's pretty f amous. BETA is supposed to be the best club in the U.S. as far as sound systems and atmosphere goes, even though it's pretty small (on the left is a pic of the outside, in case you were wondering). It was really fun. We wore earplugs, and I'm glad because I could literally feel the bass pulsing through my whole body. As soon as Armin came out, the crowd suddenly got a lot bigger and I felt like I was on the floor at a rock concert. There was literally no room to walk, let alone dance, but that's good for me because I can't dance anyways :) There were some stupid guys pushing their way up and resting their sweaty armpits on my head while they took pictures. I pushed them back and felt some satisfaction in elbowing them in the ribs numerous times while they were next to me pushing people around. I think they were drunk. Everyone else was nice though. I didn't see any rave drugs or anything, just alcohol, so that's good. We left once we got tired and headed back to our sweeeeet hotel room. We used dad's elite member rewards whatever to get a good rate at the Marriott Denver City Center. Somehow we got hooked up with this really nice room on the 16th floor wher e we had access to all this exclusive stuff. We had to use our room key in the elevator just to get up to our floor. That was pretty exciting. We got to Denver pretty early, so we had some time to relax in the hotel before going to Beta. Thanks dad!
The man himself, Armin Van Buuren
Glenn Morrison waving goodbye, Armin taking over.
This is when the crowd got crazy.
This video gets pretty cool about a minute into it
Standing in front of one of the massive speakers. I distinctly remember feeling
my throat vibrating...
The pro at work
Annnnnd... us trying to communicate, and sort of
failing at it.
After the show
Before, during, and after--notice how we progress from nice, to sweaty, to sweaty and tired.
The Final Commentary View from our room on the 16th floor.
And now, we are back in Utah and very glad not to be on the road anymore! We took our pets with us on the trip (a lizard and a fish), so I am relieved to finally not to have a fish bowl in my lap. Next time we're getting a fish sitter!
Pets on the road--Weedy (lizard) and Leeroy (fish)
