Because the Balloon Fiesta brings so much traffic into the city and surrounding areas, it was difficult for us to find a room anywhere that wasn't outrageously priced. After calling hotel after hotel checking availability I decided that my best bet at that point would be to take my chances on Hotwire.com. I'd never done this before, but have heard pretty good reviews from anyone I've ever asked about it, and now I'm a believer too! The thing about Hotwire.com is that you can get a way sweet deal on a hotel in a general area. . . but the catch is that you don't know which hotel it is until after you book/pay for it online. So you could be getting a Motel 6 for all you know- I was way worried when I started looking at the hotels in the area that we were looking into because there were quite a few ghetto looking ones and then further down the way there were a few pretty nice ones. We wanted to stay at the Holiday Inn because we've had good experiences there-- but it was insanely overpriced. I ended up booking a room with Hotwire.com-- and then crossed my fingers hoping it was half decent. And guess what?!!! It was the Holiday Inn room that I'd called to check on before, with even bigger beds then what they told me they had available, and $60.00 cheaper! No big deal--- haha. So there's my quick shout-out to Hotwire.com. Go Hotwire!
So we were off to a great start. . . our sweet room/deal was totally an omen that the rest of the weekend was just goin to be awesome! The drive was fab-- a hundred-thousand-billion-trillion times better than the last drive up there when we drove through that terrible storm and the road was covered in what we thought at the time were frogs-- like millions, everywhere-- totally covering the road, we later found out were just enormous locusts-- like 4 inches + long--- yea there were none of those this drive, and just the tiniest sprinkle of rain, we hardly even noticed it.
We made it to Santa Fe just before 10 so we were able to spend a few hours with the Sevy clan before we went to bed. We got to wake up bright and early so that we could head into Albuquerque to see this:
The Balloons were gorgeous! There were so many of them-- all so unique~
This one was having some complications but we were lucky to be able to be so close to it! Those baskets that they stand in are so tiny-- I was sure they would be so much bigger than they were, but they're really only made to hold just a few people-- I think 4 would about fill it up.
It's the best feeling in the world to be with your family-- and there's nothing like getting a hug from your mom and dad when you've been away from them for a little while-- and a hug from Kenna too! Aren't they beautiful?! I had just made that headband for Ken the other day, and I was so glad it looked so great on her!
Here is the view of the Balloons from the base of the mountain, where the temple is. My parents and Ken hadn't ever seen it before, but they loved it!
Temple grounds are always a great place for group pictures;) here's us with mom, and then she changes into Ken. . .
We decided to check out the Old Historic Albuquerque-- and so did everybody else in town jk but really, there were a million people there! It took us at least a half an hour-- no exaggeration-- to find a parking spot because that place was packed! Here's Fuzz at the front entrance of the old town square.
There were vendors everywhere selling all of their authentic Native American jewelry-- it was gorgeous!
The whole square was so beautiful!
hola mi amigos! I think this would be a great hat to keep the sun off your face-- and probably the whole rest of your body too!
This was probably one of my most favorite parts of the trip! We got to meet some of the actual Navajo code talkers and hear them personally tell us about their experience and show us pictures of them when they were like 17 or 18 in the military. They told us about lying about there age just so that they could join the army. They were the nicest, neatest people. It was such an honor to be able to meet such brave man, who've done so much for our country.
If you look closely on this gentleman's hat you'll see the purple heart medallion! It's not everyday you meet somebody wearing one of those!
In band, because I was a percussionist we had to learn all kinds of different instruments, like the marimba, xylophone, bells, vibes. . . etc. But we never saw anything quite like this! This was like a Hispanic version of the marimba made out of different materials- The sound was incredible! These guys were so talented, it was so fun to watch them, and you could tell that they were enjoying it just as much as we were!
Here was a young Mariachi band performing there in the center of the square! They were high school and middle school students from that area-- we had so much fun listening to them. There was one song in particular that was such a crowd-pleaser. The talent from these young kids was just fascinating!
Okay, so that night my dad wanted to take us to one of his favorite restaurants in Santa Fe, The Plaza Restaurant. It was actually closed for renovation, but we were told there was another one in town, and come to find out it was right by our hotel! The food was awesome, but when it came time for our dessert, our waitress asked us if we'd be interested in the apple pie with green chili's and a cheddar crust. We were like, "Whhhaaatt?!" The combination was hard to imagine-- but she said that she'd be happy to bring us a sample piece to try. This was it. Pretty decent sample size! It was ok. . . kinda had a wierd after taste-- it was edible, but I still think I'm goin to stick with just regular apple pie from now on. Fuzz struggled with the flavor-- but he was such a great sport to even try it;)
Okay-- this was super cool! I'd heard this story years ago, it was actually on Unsolved Mysteries once upon a time. This is the Loretto Chapel, with the infamous, miraculous stairway. The story goes, there were some nuns that wanted to make this chapel into a girls catholic school, but desperately needed some stairs to connect the two levels, set up in a way that the stairs could take up the least amount of congregation space as possible, because the chapel was already so small. They took the matter up in prayer, and prayed to Saint Joseph, the carpenter (Jesus' father), for help as they didn't know how they were going to make this work. At the end of that week of prayer there was a man that showed up out of nowhere that nobody had ever seen or heard of before, that was ironically a carpenter-- who had come to build this stairway for them. He was mysterious to them because he didn't tell them where he'd come from or how he'd even known about their desire for help. He had 3 simple tools and spent the next 6 months in hard labor working on the stairway. There were no support beams used for the entire stairway~ scientist, architects and engineers are still to this day baffled at this remarkable structure that is impossible for them to even replicate as to them it makes no logical sense and defys the laws of architecture! So cool! It was made over a hundred years ago, and still stands, though they did add railings onto it because people were afraid that they would fall down the stairs without something to hold onto.
This is a picture of the stairway without railings as it was originally made. Yea, I can see why those nuns struggled with the thought of walking down without anything to hold onto. As you can see, there is not even a center beam!
The wood was so beautiful!
This stained glass was amazing!
Here was another church just up the block from the Loretto Chapel.
This church, as it reads in the picture above, is the oldest church structure in the USA. I think it was interesting that the Indians from Mexico built the walls and alter under the direction of Franciscan Padres. I'm pretty sure that this wasn't the religion of these Indians, and it just reminded me of the pioneers that came across the United States, that tried time and time again to build a temple to worship in and kept getting kicked out until they arrived in the Utah valley and spent the next 40 years building the Salt Lake City temple. It truly was a labor of love. And there were so many people that sacrificed so much to build that temple, loading the granite from the mountains and transporting it to what is now temple square. I'm sure a lot of those people had to sacrifice time from work, so that they could help work on the temple. I'm so grateful for the sacrifices that they made, and for their desire to build this temple themselves, with their own hands, as a place that that they could be free to worship.
I love that there were so many churches in both Albuquerque and Santa Fe-- I love knowing that religion was important to these people, and I could see sacrifices in their labor to bring about these magnificent places for them to be able to worship.
That area was filled with ton's of different art pieces. This one had no explanation to go along with it, so we're not really sure what it's depicting. . . I'm sure something profound about planes and countries all over the world. . . but it looked really cool. . . so we took a picture of it ;)
And that's it-- our fabulous weekend in New Mexico with my family! The Balloon Fiesta was amazing-- so neat to see! It was definitely something that we can't wait to come back to again someday!
FUN!!! I always wanted to go to the balloon festival! Looks so fun!
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