10-18-2021 Albuquerque, NM

I got an email comment from a friend re Oklahoma City.  “If you don’t hit the road and get the hell out of there, I assume your next t-log will be from Oz.”  Copy that.  Lightning, thunder and hail are not invited into my wheelhouse.  It was a relief to leave and it was a smooth uneventful drive to Amarillo, mostly on the back roads through the countryside.  Once we hit Sayre, it was free sailing on the highway.

 Amarillo doesn’t have much going on except for The Big Texan Restaurant.  We didn’t unhook the Jeepster because this was a quick overnighter.  The good folks at our rv park have free limo service to and from the restaurant! 

They do things a little
differently in Texas!

Take me to some food, Bubba!

Therefore, nice cold brews went well with our steak dinners.  The Big Texan, as you may know, is where, if you want to take the challenge to eat 72 oz. of steak with all the trimmings (shrimp cocktail, potato, salad and a roll) in one hour, your dinner is free.  If you fail, you pay for your dinner, $72US.  The answer to why somebody would be interested in eating 4 ½ lb. of steak in an hour continues to elude me.  To get his name in lights, I guess, even if it’s a restaurant in Amarillo, TX.

 Thousands of years ago, rock formations were created when volcanoes blew their stacks as the earth cooled down.  In the area around Albuquerque, miles of land were covered in porous, basalt boulders.  Over time, oxidation turned the rocks black.  About 1300 BC, along came ancient Pueblo tribes, who found that with a rustic version of a chisel and hammer, they could chip away the black exterior layer to the light brown area underneath.  They began to draw a lot of pictures on the rocks, petroglyphs,

Hiking the petroglyph trail
in Boca Negra Canyon

Those are higher glyphs

depicting their lives and their spiritual beliefs.  This area is rife with petroglyphs, nearly 24,000, and there are trails to hike to view them.  A short, easy trail in Boca Negra Canyon allowed us to view about 100 of these.  People of today aren’t sure of the messages and meanings contained in the pictures but one thing is for sure, they sure couldn’t draw very well.

 

A model of one of the very first
balloons, launched in Paris in1783.  If flew
6 miles.  Ben Franklin witnessed
the event.

Albuquerque is the home of the annual Balloon Fiesta.  As an adjunct to that, the International Balloon Museum tells the history of balloon flight from the very beginning in the early 1700s.  The museum traces the origin of man’s desire to leave the confines of gravity using hot air and later, various gases.  Benjamin Franklin witnessed the first serious balloon launch in France in 1783 and the craze to get airborne began.  Ben was ahead of his time.  On the wall is one of his quotes in which he muses about how effective it could be to respond to a slowly-building army by suddenly dropping 10,000 troops from the clouds.  (Hello, 82^nd Airborne!)

The next challenge was
to fly balloons over water.
This is a model of
a balloon that attempted to cross 
the English Channel.  As
the 2 fellows in the basket began
to lose altitude, they 
throwing out their ballast and
then a lot of their gear.
They wound up with nothing
but their underwear and
were greeted upon landing
in Calais by the King
of France.  "Bonjour, your
majesty!  Fancy meeting
you here!  "

 

A camera from the 1800s carried
in a balloon to photograph
the terrain.

The Graf Zeppelin could carry 20 people across the Atlantic Ocean in extreme comfort.  This included dining rooms with china and fine wines and bedrooms.  Two days to cross the Atlantic was unimaginable till then and the smooth soundless ride guaranteed maximum comfort and no seasickness.  It wasn’t mentioned but I am supposing that the Hindenburg disaster put an end to this.

 

This escape door was all that survived
of the Shenandoah, a US Navy
zeppelin that was destroyed by a
windstorm in 1925.

Moving along, balloons were used in warfare.  The Japs launched 9-10,000 unmanned bomb-carrying balloons during World War II, relying on the Jetstream at 30,000 ft. to deliver the bombs to the NW coast of the USA.  Many of them arrived, one of them as far east as the lower peninsula of MI, but none of them caused death or harm except for one that was found decades later by some curious kids.  It detonated and killed them.  Not all of the balloons have been recovered, they say.  So some undetonated bombs are laying around out there in N America.  Watch your step!

 

The Double Eagle V.  The
silk fabric that
makes up this balloon is 
thinner by 10 times than
a ziplock sandwich bag.

Another phase of ballooning was research and development.  Some was competition, just to see how high you could get (Been there!).  Some of the pioneers of this craze sky-dived from as high as 100,000 feet, fell at speeds that broke the sound barrier at temperatures of about -94F.  (They wore mittens.)

The "basket" of the
Double Eagle V

 

Can't leave Albuquerque without
pointing out a tiny
section of what's left of Route 66,
the Rio Puerco bridge, built
in 1933.

Jeepster driving on Route 66!

What's left of Route 66 and
the Rio Puerco bridge

After a fine dinner at Pappadeaux (which involved oysters, now at 72), we are settled in for the penultimate evening of our trip.  One more night in Flagstaff tomorrow (Dinner at Black Bart’s!) and we will arrive home.  It has been an adventure-filled trip in which men were men and 19 different sea animals were nervous (we counted them up).  I’m wrapping it up.  I’m all storied out.  Back to the sunshine and warm weather, fewer bugs and a sabbatical from you guys who keep pestering me for stories!  Hurray!  Bye for now and love to you all from Lucky Lindy and Rob.

Bye for now!

Sign for today.  Apparently,
"handicapped" is now
a gender, too!