A Very Cold Camping Weekend

We took a few days to drag the Airstream out of it's lonely existence at the storage facility and tow it up to Taos. I feel like our lives are becoming pretty banal these past few months in the apartment. I get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch a movie and go to bed. Billy paints and paints and paints... which is great but he is kinda trapped under a two ton paint brush of commitment. Blah. Unacceptable! But unfortunately necessary until we recover more fully from the economic meltdown of the past year and a half. We are at an equivalent moment to the part in the story in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea when he has not caught a fish in 84 days. We are now just waiting for our big fish to arrive. Any time now fishy.... annnnny time.

Back to the current cold camping conditions. Taos! Beautiful! I freaking LOVE Taos. We came up on Saturday and set up in a campground just south of town. We came ready to watch the local hot air balloon festival, go hiking and explore a few new areas we have not been to previously. We ended up doing a load of standing around in the cold predawn air waiting for balloons to take off that never did (poor conditions), driving through a foggy sleet storm and getting whapped in the face by winter at every turn. Not. Ready. For. That. I mean... don't get me wrong, we still had a great weekend it was just not quite as we pictured heading into it. We woke up this morning to a light dusting of snow on everything outside. EEK!

The one thing I can solidly report is that I miss living in the Airstream. If we could hitch up and peel outta here for a good three or four months of travelin' I would go in a split second. I don't even care where. Well, I guess I DO care where.... anywhere as long as it stays above 45 degrees and cold places are DENIED! Death Valley? Sure. Let's go.

On to the parade of photos. I have lots. We did get to see 4 or 5 balloons take off Sunday morning. They did not go far, maybe a mile or so away from the field they started out of. I think there were a few pilots who just wanted to please the crowd and so they did a gratuitous flight for Ooooooing and Ahhhhhing's sake. Here are my best shots from the morning...








That was the first balloon of the morning and here are a few others that I was able to get pretty shots of....

This next shot is the inside top of the balloon shot from the basket looking up while it's being inflated.

Those dark gray clouds are exactly the reason why we did not get to see a full on mass ascension. It started to rain soon after. It was still a cool thing to see up close. And the crowd was perfectly crazy New Mexican.....

Balloon McGyver.... rigging stuff up while wearing 80's tribal themed bandannas.

And my favorite fashion statement of the day.... the Eagle Versus Cobra hoodie guy. I die a little bit every time I revisit this photo. I want that hoodie. In electric blue.

Here he is again. Patiently waiting for the action to unfold... when all the while he was probably the most exciting thing flyin' that morning...




We are packing up to head back to Santa Fe so I will post the rest of the photos when I get back. We grabbed some amazing shots at dusk last night so be sure to check back!