A Week in the Land of Enchantment

On Tuesday, October 6th, I took a very early morning flight to Albuquerque. I landed around 9:40 AM and took an 11:45 shuttle to Santa Fe. The shuttle took me to the railroad station by Tomato’s, where I had lunch. Since the old RR station is now a Visitor’s Center, I asked for things to see since I had several hours to wait before Erik would be able to pick me up. They suggested a walking tour to the Plaza and several historical churches nearby. I had my luggage with me and after walking several blocks, I passed by a hotel and was greeted by a bellman. I took a few steps and then backed up, asking if I could check my luggage for a few hours. This was a very smart move as the Plaza was crowded and trying to move through there pulling my luggage would not have been fun, plus, I might have looked a little bit ridiculous!

Erik and Jeffrey picked me up around 3:45 and we went to Gracie’s volleyball game, which was being played in Santa Fe. After the game, the three of us went to Panda Express. Kadin and Gracie were with their mother.

Jeffrey and I hung out on Wednesday. Erik picked us up at 3:30 to go to Kadin’s volleyball game. We stayed through the JV and Varsity games. Since I’m taking up volleyball, it helped me to see the game played competitively.

Thursday was another day with Jeffrey. I had brought him a set of “Funny Gears” which are similar to Legos but with gears which cause them to move. Besides the gears, we built a lego space shuttle which Erik had bought J for his birthday, which was Oct. 5.

Saw these deer early one morning

Friday was a volleyball day as the girls had no school and Gracie’s 8th grade team played in a tournament which lasted all day. Gracie played a great final game but her team come up short, winning second place.

Saturday morning we headed to Albuquerque as Kadin was playing volleyball at 11. Her team won handily and Kadin did a fine job as setter in both games. After the game, we headed to our hotel where we met Nick, Sarah and Taylor, who had driven up from AZ for the week-end. We stayed in a Hampton Inn just a few blocks from Sarah’s father. Because of the Balloon Fiesta, I had trouble getting rooms but we were very happy with our suites. We went to the Fiesta Saturday night for a few hours. Everyone enjoyed seeing the colorful and different shaped balloons.

Sunday, I awakened at 5:30, couldn’t get back to sleep, so decided to head over to the Fiesta to see the 7 AM Mass Ascension of the balloons. No one else wanted to get up so I was by myself. I watched the launching for about 90 minutes and then headed back to the hotel to join the family for breakfast.

Early Morning Selfie

Sunday afternoon, Nick went with Sarah to meet her family. Erik, Kadin, Jeffrey and I went hiking through Petroglyph National Monument. Taylor stayed at the hotel to watch his football games while Gracie just hung out in our room. Sunday night, all eight of us went to LoneStar for dinner.

Monday morning we had breakfast together before a shuttle picked me up for the airport. My flight left at 12:40. I had a 2 hour layover in Dallas and arrived Orlando at 9:07. Arne was waiting for me. Nice ending to a great week!