Day 70, Saturday, October 13, 2018 - Black Mesa Casino, San Felipe, NM, Day 3

The Evening Glow

Saturday, October 13, 2018 - Black Mesa Casino, San Felipe, NM, Day 3, 0 Miles, 5,243.8 Miles for the Trip

Another early morning. The traffic was so bad that we stop & go in the right lane of I 25 for over a mile. It only took a half hour to drive to the point where we stopped, but close to another hour to get into the park. As usual, there were those that passed on the left, then tried (usually successfully) to jam their way into the line further down the road. One even pulled in at the end of the exit ramp.

We ended up parked the furtherest from the ticket booth of any of our visits, even with Don's Handicapped tag. A long walk to the gate, but on the way out we got a ride from one of the golf cart shuttles.

We missed the morning glow, and it looked like a good one - about a dozen balloons. Very crowded liftoffs, with a light wind. Fairly heavy, low clouds, so most of the balloons stayed very low over their ride.

I posted a few images at today's page, all of them at a Lightroom Web page.

We were back at the trailer around 11:00 after getting the cheapest gas of the trip at $2.50 per gallon and driving by what would have been the most expensive dry camping ( $70.00 per night if we had stayed) both at the Sandia Casino.

Dinner was a taco salad at the travel center.

More later.

It's later. We headed into the fiesta & they found an entirely new place for us to park. Too far to walk, but they had shuttles, a combined bus & golf cart ride. Evidently there were still too many vehicles in the regular parking lots to use them. Today was the most crowded of the fiesta - they had to close the roads for parking because all lots were filled (they were still taking walk-ins). Even the evening field was crowded.

They did a "Night Magic Glow", with hundreds of balloons glowing, but not flying. Hard to shoot because of the light contrast between the glowing balloons & the dark areas, but I got a few. I also made a movie or two that I'll post at a later date. After the glow they did the last fireworks show. We watched it from the parking lot. Not an ideal location like our previous fireworks shoots, but again, I posted a few at today's page, more of both the glow & the fireworks at tonight's Lightroom web built page. Lots of wiggles in the fireworks images - All are handheld because I couldn't use a tripod; too many vehicles between me and the field.

Until Tomorrow -