Jeff and Valerie Hinkle, who moved to Aberdeen, SD, last summer, bought a small farm and we wanted to see it and them. Susie saw her other three kids in September while I was in China, so Jeff was due a visit. Furthermore, we had been storing some of Jeff and Valerie's inherited belongings from the home of her parents in Las Cruces, so we could deliver them -- the belongings.
Jeff Easterling's birthday is Oct. 17, so we settled on that departure date -- drive to Denver and celebrate his birthday with Valerie and Malia.
This schedule also meshed with a visit from Ken and Elsie Ray, friends from Abilene, who came for the second weekend of Albuquerque's balloon fiesta, Oct. 12 - 14. Which is reason enough to insert a couple of balloon pictures. Here's the scene as the balloons suddenly arise, like sleeping giants. Of course, if you had this flame applied to you, you'd rise, too!
We had a bonus that weekend when the (decidedly non-punk) rock band, Luma, featuring two of my nephews, Marcus and Stephen Collins, and two friends, came from OK to do a Friday night concert in Albuquerque. (The nephews are on the right in the picture on their website.) We put them up in TuziTwo in the driveway for the night. Was a very short night for them because we got three of them up at 4:45am to go to the balloons.
Full disclosure: My camera malfunctioned just after the above shot, so this is from a previous year, but this really is what it looked like when they all got up.
Besides balloons, we and the Rays took in some of NM's scenic sights, including the top of Sandia Crest.
At any rate, after a busy weekend, we spent Monday and Tuesday loading up and left early Wednesday. I'd parked Tuzi a little differently in the driveway than I usually do, in order to provide more parking space for our guests, and I had a really tough time getting out. Only damage was to my sense of assurance, though.
It was a tough driving day -- very strong cross-winds from the west -- but we got to our campground at Chatfield State Park, near Denver, in time to take the birthday boy and family to dinner. Malia's been sick lately, but she's recovering and continues to develop very spectacularly. Jeff is preparing a video of Malia's adoption and it's amazing to compare Malia now with 10 months ago. You can page down to our China reports if you'd like.
Wind blew all night and was forecast to get stronger. We had breakfast with Malia and Jeff then headed northeast. Windy all the way. Decided we'd had enough when we got to Ogallala, NE, just over the Colorado line, and stopped for the night. Much better weather forecasted for Friday.
Cheers,
Rob and Susie
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