The crowds gather

Clicking the pics and reading my blog will prepare you for a weekend of hot air.

Church Rock is the view out of my camper door. I walked a little ways towards Church Rock just as the sun was coming up and took this picture. It was so cold, even though I was walking uphill, I was wearing two coats.

My first night at the Red Rocks Park in Gallup, New Mexico, was peaceful and quiet even though there are train tracks nearby... Isn't there always?

It was pretty chilly when I woke up this morning at 22°, and the remainder of my time here is forecast to be kind of breezy, mostly cloudy, day and night, with highs in the mid-50s and lows around freezing. It doesn't sound very appealing, especially for a balloon rally. Still, it does look like there will be a couple of early mornings that they should be able to get off the ground, but the balloonears and anyone nutty enough to get up in the air with them are definitely going to be cold.

I walked around the area and took a few pictures of the Park, it's a pretty location, almost surrounded by red sandstone bluffs, but it looks like any sunset pictures are not going to be very good because of the hills or RVs in the way.

Tomorrow is the official balloon pilot's check-in day, so I suppose many balloonists will arrive this afternoon. I'm not sure how many will show up because of the shaky weather we've been having, but maybe balloon folks are used to this.

Tomorrow there are supposed to be some Indian dancers here performing around a bonfire since this Park is on Navajo Indian reservation land. Hopefully, they won't be doing any rain dances or, worse, snow dances. They're supposed to start dancing at 6:30 PM, which is dark and ought to make taking pictures a challenge.

 Taking pictures of something in the dark that doesn't move, such as a sunrise or sunset, is easy, but taking pictures of something at night that's moving rapidly such as dancers, is a lot more challenging and usually handled with a flash on the camera. But since I don't think the dancers would appreciate a flash going off in their faces, my pictures will be iffy at best.

Theboondork

My little piece of Red Rock Park campground. Directly behind the Lance is a large field where some of the balloons take off. There are two or three such areas.

The Lance camped where I will be for the next three days. You can see Church Rock in the background, and between me and Church Rock is a field where some of the balloons will be launched.

Most folks in the campground have a view of Church Rock to one degree or another.