Category Archives: Grilling

2016 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta – Part Two

After I posted on Monday, Jim McManus of the Escapees Boomers group organized a trip to the Boxing Bear Brewery a few miles down Alameda Boulevard from the RV park. I rode with Jim in his Jeep. We had seven people – five men and two women for the brewery tour at noon. The tour was given by the brewmaster, Justin. This is a relatively small brewery using a 10-barrel system. A standard beer barrel is 31 gallons, so they brew around 300 gallons of beer per batch – the exact amount varies depending on the grain bill and how many hops are used.

Fermenters on the left, 10-barrel tun on the right

They had some brews aging in bourbon barrels.

Aging brew in bourbon barrels

It was a nice tour and we each had a couple of pints along with lunch. The lunch special includes some really tasty sandwiches – I had the Cubano – and a pint of beer for $10. Not a bad deal! The beers were very good and a good time was had by all. We came back to the RV park around 2:30pm. It was nap time for me.

Tuesday morning I was up before 5am. Brad picked me up at the entrance to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Park. After another odd breakfast in the Pilot’s Pavilion – a New Mexico dish called Frito pie – we went to the pilot’s briefing. Frito pie is a bowl with a handful of Frito corn chips topped by chili with beans, beef and cheese. Breakfast of champions.

Once again we had iffy wind conditions. The dawn patrol balloons remained grounded and a yellow flag was flying – meaning the field was closed and no one was allowed to lift off. Our pilot, Brad, had to decide if he wanted to go offsite on the chance that the field would open and he could fly in the day’s competition or stay at the field since there was a good chance the competition would be cancelled.

The competitions involve a target and test the pilot’s skill. The object is to fly over the target and drop a bean bag on it or toss a ring on a pole – things of that nature. Usually the target is on the balloon field. Competitors have to launch a minimum of one mile away from the field and aren’t allowed to lift off until all of the other balloons have left the field.

Brad decided to stay at the field. Our friends, Tom and Kris Downey (Open Road 365), arrived yesterday – they have their RV in the VIP parking area inside the Balloon Fiesta Park and they came to our launch site. They were excited to be here – it’s their first time. I explained what was going on to them and also told them they were only seeing a fraction of the normal number of balloons due to the wind concerns.

Around 7:45am, the field went green and balloons began to launch. The day’s competition was cancelled. We scrambled and assembled the balloon and inflated quickly. Brad was in the air by 8:10am. The wind out of the north had the balloons moving briskly to the south. At 8:23am, the announcement was made to close the field at 8:30am. It was getting too windy.

Brad made a short hop with his two passengers. We picked them up a few miles south of the field around 8:45am. It was short day of flying. I saw a few balloons landing at speeds that looked a little scary. Anything over 10-12 mph can be hairy.

After lunch, I spatchcocked a chicken with poultry shears Donna bought recently. The Oxo poultry shears made cutting the backbone out of a whole chicken a breeze. This was the first time I tried spatchcocking a chicken myself and it was easier than I expected. After I removed the back bone, I flattened the chicken and cut the wing tips off. Donna marinated the chicken in olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, fresh rosemary, salt and pepper. I cooked it on the Traeger and it was delicious. I set the Traeger to 350 degrees for 40 minutes with the chicken breast down, then I flipped it over and raised the temperature to 425 for 10 minutes to crisp the skin.

Traeger chicken with roasted potatoes and asparagus

I slept soundly and the alarm woke me at 4:45am this morning. I walked across the street to the entrance to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Park where I waited for the crew to pick me up. I talked to Johnny, the security guy at the entrance. Johnny has been working that post for 17 years. He always has a big smile and a wave for everyone entering the park. He knows many of the participants by name after all these years. Lots of people bring him food or coffee which they hand off to him as they enter the park.

On Wednesday morning, the conditions were much better. They would have the competition today, but competitors would launch from the field and make a drop on the target south of Alameda Boulevard in the RV park right in front of our site! Donna had a front row seat from the coach!

Balloons inflating and launching

Special shapes balloons

The famous Albuquerque Box was working today. Wind near the ground and up to a few hundred feet was moving the balloons south. At higher altitudes there was a wind shear and the wind brought the balloons back north – northwest. By working the balloon up and down, the pilot could move back and forth over the park.

After we launched the Heart’s A’Fire balloon, we piled in the chase vehicle and drove out to the south entrance – where I was picked up earlier. We waited there to see where Brad would end up. Lots of balloons were flying low overhead and I shot a few photos.

Coming through low over the trees

Special shape in flight

Lots of balloons

Pretty in the early morning sunlight

After flying low over the target, Brad flew the balloon high and went north past the Balloon Fiesta Park. Then he dropped down and we lost sight of him. After a while he contacted us on the radio and said he was on track to land back in the park. We drove back into the park and saw him coming in. The traffic was slow and I was afraid we wouldn’t get there in time. It wasn’t too big of a worry though – with so many crews in the park, someone would help them.

While we were stopped in traffic I decided to bail out of the truck and run to where I thought he would land. Brad’s wife, Jessica, said she would run with me. When I said run, I meant jog. Jessica ran. The balloon landed before I reached their landing point. Jessica got there a good 30 yards ahead of me! Jessica is 37 years old and I’m on my last day of 59 – that’s my excuse.

After we packed the balloon, I found out we had another task. We were taking the balloon to the school where Brad and Jessica’s three older children attend. We would set up for a static display and demo for the school kids.

While we were setting up, Brad noticed a tear in the envelope. The tear was nearly two feet long. The fabric was torn near a pulley for the top release. When we landed at the park, a guy I’ve never seen before helped us take the balloon down. It appears that he didn’t know what he was doing and pulled hard on the rope which must have been jammed at the pulley and tore it.

After the demo we packed up again and went directly to a shop called Aerco. They are an FAA-approved balloon repair facility. We unloaded the envelope and they will have it repaired by the end of the day.

It turned out to be a good thing we did the demo – if not, we wouldn’t have discovered the tear until we set up Thursday morning and the day’s flight would’ve been scrubbed.

Tomorrow’s forecast looks good. Hopefully they have it right and we’ll have another great day of flying on my 60th birthday. I forgot to mention this morning’s cold temperature. It was 48 degrees at 5am. Just before sunrise the temperature dropped to 37 degrees before it started climbing again. This afternoon as I type this, it’s 75 degrees outside. Thursday isn’t supposed to be quite as cold in the morning and we’ll see mid-70s in the afternoon again.

*Just so you know, if you follow one of my links to Amazon and decide to make a purchase, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Albuquerque Aloft

Before we left the Enchanted Trails RV Park, Donna had a delivery from a company that specializes in pet products. She ordered a special cat bed that mounts in a window. The bed uses four suction cups for mounting – two at the bed level and two more for support straps.

K&H Pet Products cat window bed

I assembled it and we mounted it on the living room slide out window Thursday morning. Ozark didn’t seem very interested at first. Then we had to put her in her crate while we relocated to the Balloon Fiesta RV dry camping area. While we made the 20-mile drive, Donna had black beans cooking in the slow cooker. She plugs in the slow cooker hot plate and puts it in the sink. The slow cooker runs off the inverter and cooks while we drive.

Slow cooker

When we checked in, I told the person manning the office my name and said we were pre-registered with the Escapees Boomer Group. They looked up my information and had a guy escort us to the Escapees area. From there, another guy with the Escapees named Jim directed us to an area where we unloaded the Spyder and dropped the trailer. Then he escorted us to our site.

Outside our windshield is a large open field. Last year, the balloon I crew for landed here on one of the flights. I’m hoping we do so again. I needed to get the Traeger wood pellet fired grill from the trailer. Unfortunately, the area where we dropped the trailer is about 300 yards from our site. Jim said he would see if he could find someone with a truck to help us out. A fellow Escapee, Ken, volunteered to help us. We loaded the Traeger, chairs, table and a few odds and ends in his pick-up truck and he drove it to our site. Nice!

I needed the Traeger to cook two racks of babyback ribs for the potluck dinner at Brad and Jessica Rice’s house. I know I go over this every time I make babyback ribs, but I’ll repeat my method. I prepared the ribs Wednesday evening so I could get a head start on grilling after we set up our rig. First I removed the thin membrane from the bone side of the ribs. This isn’t too hard – I start in the center and separate the membrane from the ribs with a table knife. You don’t want a sharp knife – it will cut through the membrane. You just want to peel a little of the membrane from the ribs. Then I use a paper towel to grip the membrane and slowly pull it off the ribs.

With the membrane removed, I’m ready for dry rub. This time I used a 3:2 ratio of Pappy’s Choice Seasoning and Lambert’s Sweet Rub O’Mine. It takes a few tablespoons per rack. I wrapped the ribs in cling wrap and put them in the refrigerator.

On Thursday afternoon, I preheated the Traeger with the setting on 300 degrees. This gave me a pit temperature of about 280 degrees. I put the ribs on the grill, bone side down and closed the lid. I let them cook for two and half hours before I opened the lid. Then I wrapped them in heavy-duty aluminum foil, put them back on the Traeger and dropped the setting to 250 degrees.

Fifteen minutes later, I took them out of the Traeger, stacked the two racks and wrapped them in a bath towel to keep them warm. This is different from the way I cooked them in the past. The results turned out to be superior. The dry rub was just about perfect, the ribs were moist and the meat fell off the bone. We loaded the Spyder with the ribs, slow cooker with the beans plus two containers of restaurant-style Mexican rice that Donna prepared the night before.

We headed out to the Rice’s house around 4:30pm. The traffic on Alameda was unbelievable. It took us 45 minutes to find their house which was about 10 miles away. We had a feast there for the Heart’s A’Fire crew, families and friends. It was a fun party. Just as everyone was filling their plates, a thunderstorm blew in. We weren’t expecting that. Donna and I rode the Spyder home around 8pm and it was still sprinkling and the roads were really wet. Visibility was poor, but at least the traffic was light.

When we came home, we found that Ozark the cat likes her new window bed.

Ozark on her window bed

I watched a lackluster Thursday Night Football game and hit the sack around 10:30pm. I had my alarm set for 5am – that’ll be the drill for the next 10 days.

After a poor night’s sleep, I was up at 5am. I’m sure our neighbors were thrilled to hear our generator fire up at that hour. But that’s how it goes at Balloon Fiesta time. Generator hours are 5am to 10pm. Many of us have to be up early to crew.

Friday’s flight isn’t really part of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. It’s an extracurricular event called Albuquerque Aloft. Pilots sign up to lift off from local public schools to raise awareness among young people. I rode back to the Rice’s house – at this hour it took me little over 15 minutes to get there. We pulled out of their driveway before 6:30am and went to Maggie Cordova Elementary School for our flight.

Brad lifted off around 7:30am with Lisa, wife of crew member Aaron on board. They had about an hour of flight time before we chased them down at an abandoned golf course northeast of their starting point.

Heart’s A’Fire over the chase vehicle

We had things packed up fairly quickly and I was back home by 10:30am and ready for a nap. This evening, we have another potluck dinner with the Escapees Boomer Group. Tomorrow will be a long day. I’ll roll out of bed at 5am to meet the crew at the Balloon Fiesta Park. We’re assigned to launch site H7. After the morning flight and tailgate party, I’m sure a nap will be in order. Then we will set up again for the evening glow.

A Surprise Visit

It’s almost time for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta again. It’s hard to believe a year has gone by since I learned to crew a hot air balloon. The event officially starts on Saturday, October 1st and runs through Sunday, October 9th. Things will begin for us on Thursday as we move and set up our rig with the Escapees Boomers Group outside the Balloon Fiesta Park.

I forgot to mention in my last post that Donna manned the grill while I watched Monday Night Football. The grill is usually my domain, but she did a fine job grilling a mojo marinated pork tenderloin. We planned to cook the tenderloin on the weekend, but gusty winds and thundershowers meant it stayed in the refrigerator. It didn’t hurt it to marinate for a couple of days – in fact it came out excellent. She roasted green chilaca peppers with it and served it with a side of steamed green beans.

Mojo marinated pork with roasted chilaca pepper

Tuesday morning we went to the Los Duranes Community Center for pickleball. We played for two hours and had a good time as always. This community center is a nice facility and it’s open to the public – no charge!

After pickleball it was noon and we were hungry. We stopped at Blake’s Lotaburger – a popular chain of fast food in Albuquerque. We both ordered their signature burger – Lotaburger with green chile and cheese. Spicy, but very tasty. We don’t eat fast food often, but we were happy we stopped and tried the green chile cheeseburgers.

I had a couple of errands to run and also took the Spyder to a self-serve car wash to clean it up in the afternoon. It was overdue, but it’s looking good now.

I saw on Facebook that our friends Dave and Stilla Hobden entered New Mexico on I-40 in their Alpine Coach. They’re traveling west after spending time in Tennessee visiting family. They are on their way to an Alpine Coach rally in Pahrump, Nevada. Dave phoned me and said they wanted to stop and see us – they could make it to the Enchanted Trails RV Park by 5pm and stay the night.

We saw them pull in and after giving them a chance to set up, we walked over to their site. After a short visit we all came to our site for happy hour. Donna cut up and reheated the leftover pork tenderloin and we made street tacos for dinner.

Stilla, Donna and Dave

It was great visiting and catching up with them – we last got together in January at Lake Havasu. Dave and Stilla pulled out of here around 9:30am this morning. They’re planning for a long day as they need to be in Pahrump tomorrow.

We pulled out on the Spyder right behind them. I dropped Donna off at a Starbuck’s by Costco on Coors Boulevard. She was meeting Jessica Rice and Ruth Garner. They were going to do some meal planning over coffee at the Starbuck’s then pick up provisions at Costco. There will be a lot of tailgating at the Balloon Fiesta.

Meanwhile I made a stop at Dan’s Boot and Saddle Shop on 4th Avenue. I wanted to see an assortment of boots and make some comparisons. You can only learn so much online – sometimes you need to actually touch and feel them and see the workmanship first-hand. Dan’s had a wide selection and I saw several boots I’d only read about before.

Then I stopped at Smith’s Grocery and bought two racks of babyback ribs. My original plan was to smoke a brisket for the potluck dinner at the Rice’s house where we’ll kick-off the Balloon Fiesta Thursday night. Then I realized with the move to Balloon Fiesta Park and set-up time, I wouldn’t have enough time left in the day to smoke a brisket. So I changed up the plan and will put Memphis-style babyback ribs on the Traeger to bring to the potluck.

I don’t know all of the details yet, but we will display the Heart’s A’Fire hot air balloon at a local school on Friday morning. The actual event begins on Saturday and I’ll be at the Balloon Fiesta Park by 5am. We also have an evening glow event on Saturday, so it will be a long day.

I usually try to post to this blog in the morning hours, but with the Balloon Fiesta schedule I won’t be doing that. I expect to post irregularly over the next 12 days.

By the way, WordPress finally fixed the bug that stopped the e-mail notifications. So, if you are a subscriber, you should be getting e-mail notifications when I publish a new blog post.

Spatchcocked Chicken in Taos

So, what’s a spatchcocked chicken you ask? Read on and I’ll get to it. We headed out of Eagle Nest Lake State Park around 11am on Saturday morning. Our route took us south then west on US64 through the Carson National Forest. A few miles past the junction to Angel Fire, we began climbing on a narrow switchback road with a speed limit of 25mph. I may have hit 30mph on the short straights, but you wouldn’t want to take the hairpin turns any faster than 25mph – maybe even 20mph in a motorhome.

After a couple of miles of this, we hit the summit over 9,000 feet above sea level. Having a turbocharged engine is a great advantage at higher elevations. Normally aspirated engines lose power as you gain altitude. The thinner atmosphere doesn’t provide as much oxygen – modern fuel-injected engines sense this through the oxygen sensor in the exhaust and adjust the amount of fuel injected accordingly. Less oxygen requires less fuel and power output drops.

Having a turbocharger or supercharger can mostly overcome this by compressing the incoming charge of air in the intake system, thus providing more oxygen. But there are always limitations. The Cummins/Holset turbocharger on our Cummins ISL engine is supposed to reach full-rated power up to 9,000 feet above sea level. It wasn’t quite there – the drop off was only really noticeable on the gauges – judging by seat-of-the-pants, not so much. Where I usually see the boost pressure top out at 24 psi, it only produced 22 psi at the higher elevation. Also, after deceleration, when I stepped on the accelerator, I could see a puff of black sooty exhaust. I don’t see this usually – it’s from a rich fuel mixture on initial acceleration due to the lower boost pressure. Anyway, we made it over the summit without any issues and dropped down into the Taos Valley.

We checked into the Taos Valley RV Park which sits at an elevation of 6,955 feet above sea level. Taos, New Mexico is a small town with a population of about 6,000. It’s an artsy community with an historic downtown area. The economy is mostly driven by tourism and outdoor recreation.

On Friday night before we left Eagle Nest Lake State Park, we watched an old movie – Easy Rider. Many of the scenes, including the jail where the main characters, Wyatt and Billy, meet an eccentric attorney were filmed in Taos. By the way – the attorney named George Hanson was played by an unknown-at-the-time actor named Jack Nicholson. He took the part for union scale wages which were $392/week at the time. The rest is history.

Taos Valley RV Park boasts long pull-through sites for big rigs. We found our site, number 39 was about 70 feet long allowing us to leave the trailer connected. However, the sites are narrow. They skimped on concrete by laying down two strips of concrete where the wheels are instead of a full concrete pad. The landscaping is native with creosote bushes lining the narrow sites. It was impossible for me to make the turn and line up in our site without scraping the side of the trailer on the stiff, brittle creosote branches. This left marks on the trailer – grrr.

Typical Taos Valley RV Park pull-through site

After we settled in, I set up the Traeger wood pellet fired smoker/grill. Donna defrosted a spatchcocked chicken she bought at Trader Joe’s in Colorado Springs.

Trader Joe’s spatchcocked lemon rosemary chicken

Spatchcocking fowl is an old preparation method dating back to the 1700s. It’s basically a method of butterflying and flattening the bird to allow it to roast quickly and evenly. This is done by removing the backbone from the bird, then flattening it. Some people open it up after removing the backbone and split the cartilage in the breast to make it flatten easier.

I started roasting the chicken skin (breast) side down.

Breast side down on the grill

The chicken was already marinated so there wasn’t much in the way of preparation. I had the Traeger set at 375 degrees. It was windy and this increased the cook time. When the internal temperature reached 130 degrees, I flipped the chicken and set the Traeger to high – 450 degrees. This crisped the skin. I pulled it off the grill when the internal temperature of the breast meat hit 160 degrees.

Nice and crispy

I have to say, this is my new favorite method for roasting a whole chicken. The white meat was juicy and so tasty. The skin was crisp. I’ll need to buy new poultry shears and learn to spatchcock a whole chicken myself. Donna served it with steamed broccoli and roasted fingerling potatoes with kalamata olives. The roasted olives were a nice salty addition to the potatoes.

Spatchcocked chicken with roasted fingerling potatoes with kalamata olives

Spatchcocked chicken with roasted fingerling potatoes and kalamata olives

I paired it with an IPA from Marble Brewing – they proudly claim it’s “Punctiliously brewed in ABQ, New Mexico.” It was a citrusy IPA that was quite tasty.

IPA from Marble brewing in Albuquerque

I bought the beer earlier in the day when I made a run on the Spyder to Smith’s grocery in town. I’m used to answering questions about the Spyder in parking lots or gas stations. This time there was another rig that garnered more attention than the Spyder. I think the passenger attracted some of the attention.

It was an old BMW motorcycle with a side car and a dog for a passenger.

On Sunday, I hung out and watched the Moto GP race from Misano, Italy, then settled in for NFL football. Donna took the Spyder to the Devisadero Trailhead. She hiked up the 3.7 mile trail to the peak at 8,304 feet above sea level.

Sign at Devisadero Peak

Donna’s selfie at the summit

View of Taos from Devisadero

It looks like we’re in for another fine weather day. Temperatures should be in the upper 70s with little chance of rain. Donna is putting together a list of things to do today – we’ll do some sightseeing, visit a natural hot springs and check out the local brewery.

Labor Day Lift Off

Our main reason for coming to Colorado Springs was the Labor Day Lift Off hot air balloon event. It was an opportunity for us to reacquaint ourselves with Brad and Jessica Rice and their family and some of the other crew members for their Heart’s A’Fire hot air balloon team. I looked at it as kind of a pre-season opportunity to get back in the game ahead of the big event – the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.

The Labor Day Lift Off in Colorado Springs is celebrating its 40th annual event. Although the number of balloons participating pales in comparison to Albuquerque – about 70 balloons here versus more than 500 balloons there – the event is well-run and draws large crowds of spectators. The organizers fill an area of Memorial Park with vendors and also bring in a mobile kids’ amusement park.

On Saturday morning, I rolled out of bed at 5am and prepared to go to work. I met Brad, Yonnie, Darin and Aaron at Brad’s rig. We would be the main crew for Brad. We rolled out to the same area of the park where we set up the static balloon display on Friday. Our stall was marked E2 on the site map, but it wasn’t clearly marked at the field. Brad had an app on his smartphone from the organizers that utilized the GPS function to pinpoint our spot. We were in the right area but it still wasn’t clear which way to orient everything for set up. Looking around, it seemed everyone was in the same boat and we saw what appeared to be a haphazard approach around us.

Sunrise at the pilot’s briefing

After the pilot’s briefing, we quickly set up and inflated the Heart’s A’Fire balloon. Brad had two passengers from his event sponsor, Xfinity. We were in the first wave of balloons. They had divided the participants into two groups. On Saturday morning our group went first and on Sunday we would go in the second wave. The launch official had us release soon after we were inflated.

Another successful launch

We piled into the chase vehicle and slowly made our way through the crowds of people and onto the city streets. Navigating around Colorado Springs is challenging. None of us were intimately familiar with the roads. I was using the map app on my phone as we watched the direction the balloon was heading. The wind speeds were much higher than anticipated and the balloon was heading south.

We thought we knew where it was going, so I navigated us to a commercial area where the road ended by a Camping World store. I was hoping we could find a dirt road to get us into the pasture where we thought they would go. No such luck. There was a dirt road but it immediately crossed a ravine with steep sides that were too much for us to pull the trailer through.

After radio communication with Brad, we hit I-25 northbound and pulled off to the shoulder. We could see a number of balloons in the cow field to the east. It was rough terrain and also had a sturdy barbed-wire fence. I wriggled through the fence and trotted down into the field. I wanted to make sure everyone was okay. I saw Brad walking toward the fence. I continued past him and found the balloon and confirmed both passengers were fine. As I looked around, I could see this wasn’t going to be an easy extraction.

Rough pasture landing area

I saw a balloon with a pilot and two passengers approaching the landing. They had to come in high enough to clear power lines to the north, then quickly drop – only to find a steep ravine that had to be cleared before they could set down. The ground wind had picked up and I could visibly see their balloon pick up pace during the last twenty feet of descent. I ran hard and caught their basket when it was about two feet off of the ground. It was moving fast. The initial ground contact resulted in a bounce that threw me off. I scrambled and jumped and grabbed on again, expecting a rough ride. Just then Aaron appeared and grabbed the basket right next to me and we pulled it to the ground.

The basket was stopped but the wind blew the balloon until it was pulling the basket past the tipping point. I warned the passengers to keep their hands in as it tipped on its side. No harm done. They were safely on the ground. Eventually 13 balloons ended up in this field. It wasn’t an easy landing for anyone, but there were few alternatives.

We set about disassembling the Heart’s A’Fire to a greater degree than usual. We removed the three propane tanks in preparation of packing everything back to the rig at the side of the interstate. Luckily, about then, a local person who knew Brad and crew drove up in a Jeep. We were able to load the envelope, tanks and other hardware in the Jeep and she drove out to the trailer. While the rest of the crew unloaded the Jeep and packed the gear in the trailer, Brad enlisted his two passengers and the four of us started carrying the basket out of the field. It was laborious to say the least, but we got it done and it was time to tailgate.

Back at the park, tables, chairs and easy-up canopies were taken out and set up. Yonnie, Darin and Aaron manned the grills. They made a pile of fixin’s for breakfast burritos. We had eggs, sausage, bacon, hash brown potatoes, grilled tortillas and condiments galore.

Aaron and Yonnie at the grills

A burrito and a couple of cold beers at 10:30am made the physical labor of extracting the balloon soon forgotten. We were home by 1pm and I was ready for a nap. Donna went to the hotel swimming pool. I ended up taking a dip in the pool around 4pm, then I had to start thinking about the evening event.

Heart’s A’Fire was participating in the evening glow. The evening glow is where the hot air balloons are set up by sundown and provide a static display. When the pilot hits the burners, the balloons glow like a lamp shade. It can be spectacular and a huge crowd came to the park. About half of the registered balloons took part Saturday night, the other half will participate on Sunday night.

Of course a static display entails all of the same steps as a flight, minus the launch and chase. The set-up and tear-down are the same amount of work as always. The workload got higher as the wind started blowing harder than forecast, making it difficult to control the balloon and keep the basket from tipping. It’s physically demanding work to put your weight on the rim of the basket to keep it from rising or tipping. I was too busy to shoot any photos – but here’s one from Albuquerque last year.

Glow photo from last year

The spectators mostly seemed oblivious to anything other than watching the balloons light up. Our balloon was near the tipping point and Brad decided it was best to deflate before things got any worse. As the envelope was collapsing, people continued to crowd around and walk right through the area where the envelope would land. I was yelling, “It’s coming down!” repeatedly as I struggled to keep the basket under control. Aaron and Yonnie were manning the crown line and we had to enlist a couple of spectators to add their weight by putting their hands on the basket as it was more than Darin and I could do. When the envelope deflated, we had to remove a few things from under the envelope like a stroller and backpack that someone had left on the grass in our area. We packed with headlamps on our caps.

I was exhausted by the time we came home. After a nightcap, I zonked out until the alarm had me rolling over at 5am again.

The weather forecast was much nicer for Sunday. After the pilot’s briefing, we were moved to a different launch site. Today, Brad would be the hare pilot for the hare-n-hound event. This meant that Heart’s A’Fire would be the first balloon released in the second wave. Brad’s task was to carry a target, set his balloon down in an appropriate area and the other balloons would chase him. After he set the balloon down, one of the crew would take the large vinyl “X” and place in the open. The other balloonists would drop a bean bag and judges would measure for the closest “hit.”

Once again, the park was filled with crowds of spectators.

Large crowds at he park

We launched with two passengers aboard – a woman who’s apparently involved in the sport and her five-year-old daughter. They had a nice flight. They went up high and moved to the northwest, then dropped down and changed direction bringing them back toward the park.

We were able to watch most of the flight from the chase vehicle and made it to their landing zone just before they arrived. Aaron, Darin, Yonnie and I converged on the basket and set it down gently on the grass as it floated by. Perfect! Aaron quickly set up the target.

Soon balloons were passing overhead and the pilots were throwing their bean bags with streamers at the target. We had to educate a few spectators that were standing and talking near the target completely unaware that bean bags could land on their head if the weren’t watchful.

Balloons coming in over the target

We were packed up early and ready to tailgate by 10am. There were brats on the grill this morning plus tables full of side dishes. We were back home by noon. I’ll relax for the rest of the day and watch the Moto GP race from Silverstone, England. Tomorrow we do it one more time, then we’ll move back to the Elks Lodge in the afternoon and ponder our next move.

Poudre River Trail

The first white men to explore some of the places in and around the Rocky Mountains were fur trappers. Many of them were French and gave French names to places such as rivers, lakes and trading posts. This being the wild west, the pronunciation of these French names were often changed from the proper French name to something else altogether.

Donna went for a bike ride yesterday. She’s been looking forward to riding the Poudre River Trail. Donna studied French in high school and college, so she pronounced the Cache la Poudre River with a proper French accent. I told her it’s locally pronounced Poo-der. While riding what she thought might be the beginning of the trail, she stopped to ask a couple of women if this was the trail to Windsor. They weren’t sure about that but they did say that it was the Poo-der River Trail.

Here are a few pictures of informative kiosks and views from the trail. The paved trail is multi-use for hiking and biking and runs from Greeley to Windsor. A short ride through Windsor will get you to another trail and you can ride to Fort Collins.

You can see the river water level is quite low – not unusual for this time of year.

While Donna was out on her ride, I rode the Spyder to King Soopers to buy a rack of babyback ribs. I set up the Treager wood pellet fired smoker/grill and prepped the ribs. I always remove the tough, thin membrane from the bone side of the ribs first. The membrane can be tough and chewy – also it blocks the spices in the rub from contact with the meat. I dry rubbed the ribs with a mixture of two parts Pappy’s Choice seasoning and one part Lambert’s Sweet Rub O’Mine.

It was hot out and unusually humid again. The temperature was in the upper 80s when I fired up the Traeger. After the first half hour, I lowered the temperature setting on the Traeger and went inside to read a book. I checked the grill a couple of times without opening the lid by peering through the smoke vents. I also stirred the wood pellets in the hopper to keep them feeding smoothly through the auger.

The wind kicked up during the cook and the outside temperature dropped. When I estimated about 30 minutes of cooking time remaining, I decided to raise the temperature setting of the Traeger to compensate for the cooling effect of the wind. In the end, I wish I hadn’t done that. The ribs were slightly overcooked and not as moist as I would have liked. I’m also going to modify my rub to a 3:2 ratio of Pappy’s to Lambert’s to reduce the salt content.

Rack of ribs hot off the Traeger

Meanwhile, Donna prepared a potato salad and steamed green beans for a complete meal.

A yummy meal

The windy conditions persisted well into the night. This morning we woke to the sound of rain drops on the roof of our coach. The weather almanac shows an inch of rain for the month to date in Greeley – but that usually comes in the form of an afternoon thundershower. Overcast skies and rain in the morning seems unusual to me for this time of year.

We had planned to go to a National Senior Professional Rodeo Association event this morning, but the rain shower put a damper on that plan. Senior professionals are pro rodeo cowboys over 40 years old. They compete in age groups of 40 and over, 50 and over and 60 and over. The event continues tomorrow at the Greeley Pro Rodeo Arena, so maybe we’ll attend tomorrow. I rode in a rodeo once – it was held right here in Greeley – I wrote about that in this post.

The temperature is supposed to be cooler for the next few days with highs in the upper 70s. Sounds good to me.

Blues ‘n Brews

Our highlight for the weekend was the Sweetwater Blues ‘n Brews Festival held in Bunning Park here in Rock Springs, Wyoming. This was the 10th anniversary of the event. We rode down to Bunning Park on the Spyder around 2:30pm. The festival started at noon and was scheduled to run until 10pm. There were six blues bands in the line-up with each band performing for about an hour and a half.

Blues ‘n Brews line-up

We parked in the free parking lot next to the park off Elk Street, only a few miles from the Sweetwater Events Complex where we’re staying (map). Nothing in Rock Springs is more than a few miles away!

The first thing we did was sign Donna up for the Designated Driver program. This entitled her to free admission and a goody bag with a T-shirt and a few other items. I paid the $5 entry fee and bought five beer tickets for $20.

There were 11 kiosks under portable canopies – each had three or four different beers from brewers in Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Goose Island Brewing in Chicago. I don’t know why I see so many Goose Island beers in the northwest – they obviously have a good distribution network here. The beer isn’t anything special in my opinion. I had one bartender tell me Goose Island beer is made with Northwest-sourced ingredients. Well, most craft brews will have some Cascade, Centennial or Magnum hops – all sourced from Washington, Oregon or Idaho.

When we arrived, the David Gerald Band was on stage. David Gerald hails from Detroit, Michigan. He’s a real blues-rocker and his band sounded great.

David Gerald Band

Next up was the Andy T and Nick Nixon Band. Andy T is a guitarist originally from southern California. He teamed up with vocalist/guitarist Nick Nixon to front the band in Nashville, Tennessee. However, Nick Nixon was under the weather and couldn’t come with the band. A vocalist/guitarist from Mississippi filled in for Nick Nixon – I don’t recall his full name – he was Zach something or other..

I was blown away at how tight they were able to perform with a replacement singer/guitarist. The stand-in was the front man singing and directing the band and he happened to be a first-class guitar player as well. A couple of songs were improvisations – they made it up as they went along and it was great.

Andy T in the center and a stand-in at the mic

All six bands tour the country and come from different areas. It’s impressive how a town with a population of 24,000 people well off the beaten path can put together an event such as this. By the way, the nearest “big city” is Salt Lake City, 180 miles away.

It was warm and sunny out. After a few hours of music and beer, it was time to go home. I rode on the passenger seat of the Spyder for the first time. Designated Driver Donna chauffeured me home and did a fine job of it.

Back at home, I watched the first weekend of pre-season NFL football. I had to stay up until 10pm to catch the kick-off of the Chargers game.

Sunday was a low-key day. I watched the Moto GP race from Austria and it was a good one. Donna rode the Spyder to town for groceries. It was a little windy, but otherwise a fine day. We grilled hot Italian sausages and Donna made sandwiches on hoagie rolls smothered in peppers and onions. Yum!

I should give you an update on our damage claim from the encounter with the suicidal buck in Idaho. A claims adjuster from Allied Insurance (a Nationwide Insurance company) phoned me on Friday. We discussed the accident and the damage. Our current travel makes it difficult to get an inspection and estimate done. The adjuster was very accommodating – we plan to have the coach inspected when we reach Colorado Springs at the end of the month. He’ll call me on Monday, August 29th to make the arrangements.

I’m doing some research to see where we should have the work done. It won’t be a simple patch job. I’ve read so many horror stories about this type of repair that I’m preparing for a drawn-out, painful ordeal. Hopefully we won’t be sharing a horror story, but I think it’ll take weeks to get the work done. We’ll see.

Today we expect Donna’s new laptop to arrive. I have to go to Sweetwater Technology Services to pick up her dead hard drive and pay for the diagnostic work. I’ll extend our stay here at the fairgrounds for one more night, then we’ll head east.

Red Apple Flyers

Friday evening I grilled an old favorite – bacon wrapped filet mignon. Donna made a green salad, potato salad, corn on the cob and sauteed onions and mushrooms to go with it. It was hot and windy outside, so we dined indoors. The afternoon high temperature was 102 degrees!

There’s a bacon wrapped filet mignon under those mushrooms and onions

Saturday morning we rode the Spyder to Pangborn Airport in East Wenatchee – about 22 miles from here. Our destination was the Hertz Rental Car counter. Donna rented a car so she could drive to Issaquah, east of Seattle to meet her sister Sheila. Sheila is running a marathon race today, Donna’s there with her nephew, Connor. She’ll come home tonight.

We took Batterman Road to the airport. A few miles before we reached Pangborn I saw a sign for the Red Apple Flyers’ field. The Red Apple Flyers are a radio controlled model airplane club. I remembered flying at their field about 16 years ago. After I dropped Donna off, I followed the sign to their field.

There was a gate at the entry and you needed a code to enter. I saw people inside. After a minute or two a guy waved at me, then he went into the clubhouse and opened the gate remotely. I pulled in and parked.

I looked at one of the nicest model airplane fields I’ve ever seen. I think it could be one of the best in the country. I didn’t remember it being anything like this when I flew here. I came to the Red Apple Flyers field a decade and a half ago to compete in a scale aerobatics contest. At that time I was a two-time International Miniature Aerobatics Club (IMAC) National Champion. The Red Apple Flyers hosted an IMAC contest. I came down with flu symptoms that weekend and didn’t fly especially well – I think I took second place. At any rate, I didn’t recognize the place.

I talked to a couple of guys and one of them gave me a tour of the place. He introduced me to a long-time club member – one of the founding members. I’m sorry to say I don’t remember his name. He told me why I didn’t recognize the place. It wasn’t the same field I flew at.

The club originally formed over 40 years ago when 10 guys got together and bought 10 acres of land to develop a place to fly their model airplanes. They cleared the land, leveled it and planted grass. Later, as the club grew, they added 10 more acres of land.

Meanwhile, Waste Management Corporation (WM) built a landfill nearby. Six or seven years ago, WM wanted the Red Apple Flyers property to expand their operation. They approached the club officers with an offer to relocate the field. The club officers knew WM needed their land and was willing to do what it took to get it, so they dreamed big. They struck a deal for WM to lease them 22 acres of land about a mile away from the original site, for $1/year. WM would clear the land, level it, put in irrigation and grass, a paved runway and parking area and build them a clubhouse. The agreement signed off by WM and they came through.

Red Apple Flyers work tables, pilot stations and paved runway

Red Apple Flyers clubhouse with raised observation deck on the right

The clubhouse is equipped with a full kitchen, meeting room and separate men’s and women’s rest rooms.

Paved parking and storage buildings

They have 14 RV sites with electricity and water hook-ups.

RV sites

Their agreement includes a clause that allows Red Apple Flyers to purchase the property if WM ceases operation in the area for $1. Meanwhile, WM sponsors the club with a substantial annual maintenance donation. These guys hit the jackpot!

I hung around for an hour looking at model aircraft and talking to the guys.

Large scale WWII Spitfire

Another large scale warbird

When I came back to Crescent Bar, I didn’t go directly to the RV resort. I went past it to check out where the pizza place was – it’s called Tower Pizza and it’s across the street from the public beach access of the Crescent Bar Recreation Area. It was another warm day and the beach was absolutely packed with people!

I walked over to the bridge over the cut where water diverts to the east off of the Columbia River. This was where Donna and I put our floaties in the water last week. College age kids ignored the “No Jumping or Diving” sign and where jumping off of the bridge. People in the water below would give the all-clear signal before they jumped so they could avoid hitting a boat or jet ski coming through under the bridge.

A kid diving from the bridge

Crowded beach at Crescent Bar Recreation Area

Later I went back to Tower Pizza and placed an order to go. I sat and sipped an IPA while I waited for the pizza. The waitress told me it might take 30 minutes. After about 30 minutes, another waitress asked me if I needed anything – I told her I was good, just waiting for my order. About 10 minutes later the second waitress came by again and asked me my name.

She went into the kitchen, than came back and told me there wasn’t an order for Mike, and asked what I ordered. I told her it didn’t really matter because I wasn’t going to wait another 40 minutes. She said there were a couple of orders without names and she wanted to see if one of them was mine. I told what I ordered and she went back to the kitchen.

She came back again and asked if I would wait six minutes. I told her I would and she offered me another IPA while I waited – no charge. I figured it would be more than six minutes, so why not take a free beer. It was interesting. The first waitress was on break and apparently didn’t turn my order in before she left. The original pizza order was expected to take 30 minutes. Now that they discovered the problem, they were able to make my pizza-to-go in six minutes. I didn’t even finish my glass of beer before it was ready. They didn’t charge me for either of the beers I drank and I was on my way.

Today will be a little cooler with the high temperature in the upper 80s. I’ll get started on preparations to hit the road tomorrow. I need to pack the kayak, check tire pressures and so on. I’ll pick up Donna at the rental agency later this afternoon. We’ll head out of here tomorrow morning and drive to Coeur D’Alene, Idaho next.

Hot Time in Crescent Bar

The heat wave is on here at Crescent Bar. Monday’s high was 96 degrees in nearby Quincy, Washington. We haven’t hit the river with the kayak yet – we intended to on Monday, but I started the morning playing pickleball with TJ, Lance and Boni. By the time we left the court, I was hot and too tired to inflate the kayak and take it to the launch point on the river.

I spent the rest of the day reading in the air-conditioned coach while Donna worked on her organizing tips newsletter. We agreed that we would take the kayak out on Tuesday.

On Monday night, the wind kicked up. I slept poorly as the wind was noisy and rocked the coach at times. In the morning, the wind gusts continued so we put off kayaking again. In the afternoon, Donna and I rode the Spyder to Quincy for groceries. We decided to check out another grocery store. We shopped at Akins the first time we went to town. This time, we hit the IGA store called El Mercado one block south of Akins. This store caters to the hispanic population and had some specialty meats, spices and vegetables. It also had standard fare at reasonable prices. We like the store, and we’ll probably go back there again, but Akins has a better selection of craft beers.

It was another hot afternoon with the temperature in the upper 90s. Donna took the grass-fed lamb chops we bought from the rancher in Portland out of the freezer. She rubbed them with a paste of olive oil, fresh rosemary and thyme, garlic, salt, pepper and lemon zest. I grilled them on the Weber Q.

Lamb chops with rib bone

Donna served it with green beans and lemon rice with chopped parsley.

Lamb chop with green beans and rice

I paired the lamb chop with IPA from Red Hook Brewing – one of Seattle’s oldest craft brewers, making good beer since 1981.

Red Hook Long Hammer IPA

After another windy night, we were up early this morning. We walked over to Lance and Boni’s site at 7:30am. TJ joined us there and we all piled into Lance and Boni’s SUV and headed to East Wenatchee to a park with pickleball courts. The park was about 20 miles from here and had six new pickleball courts. TJ’s wife Julie is away on a business trip to Las Vegas so she wasn’t with us.

Pickleball courts in East Wenatchee

We played for more than three hours. We met several people at the park – we always meet the nicest people playing pickleball. Once again, it’s hot out and I’m whipped. The forecast calls for a high of 97 today, 99 tomorrow and 100 degrees on Friday!

I dumped and flushed our holding tanks – today is the seventh day without dumping or making any real conservation effort so the gray tank was full. I think I’ll stay indoors this afternoon and start in on another book.

Watercraft in the RV Park

Most RV parks we stay in tend to fill up on the weekend and empty out on Sunday afternoon. This is true here at Crescent Bar RV Resort. People began showing up on Friday afternoon and the park was near full capacity by Saturday morning. But it’s a little different here.

A number of the sites were occupied by tents or small slide-in campers on pickup trucks. The reason for this was the number of people arriving towing a boat or trailer full of personal watercraft. The section of the Columbia River at Crescent Bar is also called Wanapum Lake and it’s a popular recreational area for watercraft.

Our neighbors to the west of our site pulled in late Friday evening with a pontoon boat. They have a travel trailer on their site. They pay an annual fee to have the site full-time. They come here every weekend in the summer, making a drive of more than three hours from Edmonds, Washington, north of Seattle over Snoqualmie Pass after work on Fridays and returning to their home on Sunday afternoon.

Our neighbor’s pontoon boat

On the other side of our site is another annual park resident with a ski boat. He stores his boat in a yard a couple of miles away from the park. On weekends they drive here on Friday, bring the boat to their site and spend Saturday and Sunday on the river. They arrived Friday around 9pm. After boating Sunday morning, they spent a few hours cleaning the boat before they took it to the storage yard and headed back to western Washington. Whew!

Our neighbor’s ski boat

Many people here follow a similar plan for the weekend. Others pitch a tent so they can spend the day on the river and party at night.

Tent and boat

Camper and jet skis

Another annual site with a boat – jet ski in the background

The site across from us had a few tents and canopies set up. They arrived with a group pulling trailers loaded with jet skis. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the sunny weather and recreational opportunities. This morning, many of the sites are empty and most of the boaters are gone until next weekend.

We’ll get the kayak down to the river now that it’s a little less hectic on the water. On Friday afternoon, Donna ordered a cart for the kayak from Amazon. One of the hassles we face with our inflatable kayak is getting it to the water. With the cart it will be much easier. Donna ordered it through her Amazon Prime account with free two-day delivery. It showed a Sunday delivery, which I thought was probably wrong – but the site did say that Sunday delivery was available in this area.

The cart arrived Saturday morning – less than 24 hours after she ordered it. How do they do that? Assembly was breeze. All I had to do was remove the retaining pins from the axles, install the wheels and re-insert the pins. Job done!

Donna prepared her mojo marinade recipe Sunday afternoon and used it on a pork tenderloin. I grilled the tenderloin while Donna prepared the sides – green lemon rice and summer squash sauteed with red onion.

Grilled pork tenderloin

Served with Orzo salad with spinach and feta and sauteed zucchini and red onion

Served with green lemon rice and summer squash sauteed with red onion

It was a tasty and nutritious meal. We enjoyed the dinner at our picnic table. It went well with an Apocalypse IPA from 10 Barrel Brewing.

Al fresco dinner

The temperature reached 90 degrees in the afternoon, but by dinner time it was comfortable outside in the shade of our canopy. The forecast for the rest of the week calls for daily highs in the upper 90s. I think we’ll be hitting the beaches.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Grilling

2016 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta – Part Two

Albuquerque Aloft

A Surprise Visit

Spatchcocked Chicken in Taos

Labor Day Lift Off

Poudre River Trail

Blues ‘n Brews

Red Apple Flyers

Hot Time in Crescent Bar

Watercraft in the RV Park

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