Balloons Sometimes Burst and Unvolunteering is our word of the day

As much as we have looked forward to the Rally, we have had a few disappointments. Things were not as we expected as our experience being a volunteer at Redmond, Oregon was much, much better. To start out, the volunteers park at the Balloon Fiesta Park, but the actual activities for the rally are in downtown Albuquerque, about a 25-30 minute bus ride away. That was a bummer, but the big blow came when we were assigned to work at the Balloon Fiesta Park every day of the rally, only leaving us about 2 hours each day to even try to go to seminars and see the exhibitions. Between the volunteer assignment and the split locations we were really down. That's when we decided to "unvolunteer" and took ourselves out of the workforce. We lose our reimbursement on the cost of the rally, but we will enjoy ourselves and be able to see things that we came to see!

So, today is Tuesday. We were just able to get a WIFI spot to use our internet so we thought we would let you see some pictures we took yesterday.This was taken as we were driving in to downtown Albuquerque (going East). It was about 9:30 am so the heavy commute traffic was gone, but it was still busy.
We drove into the Balloon Fiesta Park to park our RV for the next 8 nights. We were having trouble with our braking system on our tow car so we left it here until we got the rig parked.
This grassy area is next to our RV, with only a truckcamper between us and the grass. This picture is taken facing eastward. Unfortunately this area will be filled with more RV's once the rally begins. Apollo likes to run and catch the ball as you will see by the next picture.
From this picture you can see our Tacoma just above Apollo and our RV just beyond it! The big building in the background is the Balloon Festival Museum. Now that we have some extra time we might be able to go see it!

The last picture is from the "Volunteer Dinner" last night. There are about 240 volunteers, but as of today we are no longer one of them. : (

I'm not sure how often we will have the internet while we are here at the rally, so we will get caught up on our activities whenever we get the chance.

A note on the New Mexico symbol that I took a picture of on Sunday. It is called ZIA, and is a Native American ancient sun symbol. The four points on each of its four sides represent the 4 directions (NESW), the 4 seasons (spring, summer, fall, winter), the 4 parts of the day (sunrise, noon, evening & night) and the 4 stages of life (childhood, youth, middle years and old age). The four sides are bound by a circle of life and love, without beginning or end. I knew it was something like that but couldn't remember it when I posted the picture on Sunday. Hope you enjoyed the cultural lesson of the day!!!

All is well with us. We registered for the rally, did our unvolunteering and went to Costco today. The high winds are expected tonight and tomorrow so we will batten down the hatches and stay warm until it is over. Maybe we will go to Santa Fe tomorrow since the rally doesn't start until Thursday. We will let you know what happens!

Don't forget to mail off your income taxes!!!