The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. We came, we saw, we conquered. It’s been our major pin in the calendar for quite a while.
After routing our spring to get from the desert Southwest to Elkhart, an amazing summer in Alaska, returning to the chaos of the bus renovations not being done, spending a month onsite pushing to get them done in time to make Albuquerque and then a 1400 mile quick run back to New Mexico – we made our goal.
We arrived positively exhausted, low on personal energy fuel, back-logged on work and 9 days ahead of heavy socialization & activities as we co-hosted the first ever Xscapers convergence.
Even if we’re fully charged up, going into such a stimulating environment would have pooped us out.
Basically, we’ve been running in reserve energy mode for a long long time.
Post Fiesta in Albuquerque
We made it through the balloon fiesta, quite well, actually. It’s hard to not be energized when surrounded by amazing supportive community, appreciation from readers and magical balloons flying over.
But as the event ended, we wanted nothing more than to crawl into a cave for a few days and hide. We had been tapping into reserve energy that was now sucking fumes.
While we would have loved to just stay put in the standard parking lot another day or two, the balloon fiesta staff too wanted to wrap up the event and weren’t too keen on us staying put. For ease, we packed up and moved over to the Sandia Resort & Casino just around the block.
This is a well known free casino parking option in Albuquerque, and it has absolutely beautiful well landscaped grounds. The parking lot can accommodate many dozens of RVs.
They have an official 4-night limit that is infrequently enforced. Many of our neighbors had been there well over a week.
We checked in at the Players Club, and were given $25 in free match play – so we played the slots for a bit to mindlessly distract ourselves. I figure if the casino is generous enough to let us stay, I don’t mind contributing a few bucks. Unfortunately for them, we turned the free match play into real dollars – so we treated ourselves to the buffet with our winnings.
As nice as the parking spot was and convenient to shopping for provisioning, this was not a place to find our much needed solitude. Seems many of our fans and friends were also parked there, and we had a constant stream of visitors.
Of course, we were pleasantly surprised that we randomly pulled in right next to a hero of ours, Randy of Mobile Kodgers! We totally spaced on snapping a picture of us together, but it was great to catch up with him – and the many others we met there.
Cochiti Lake Paradise
Our original intentions was to head out to a New Mexico State Park, purchase an annual camping pass and start some park hopping.
However, we wanted to stay within close range of Albuquerque, as Apple just announced the new retina 21.5″ iMac – and it totally had my name on it. We had no idea if we’d have a shipping address in the coming months, so we opted to have it shipped to the only Apple store in the area.
We couldn’t find an ideal sounding state park nearby – but Cochiti Lake Recreation Area (our review), run by the Army Corp of Engineers – sounded great. Just 11 miles off I-25 between Sante Fe and Albuquerque, the park had very high ratings and reports of strong cellular signal.
The electric hook-up sites looked pretty booked up, but the dry camping spots were wide open. Perfect – we don’t need no stickin’ hook-ups anyway.
We arrived, dumped the tanks and refilled the fresh water – and settled into one of the open dry camping loop spots for $12/night. It just so happened it was huge, had a gorgeous lake view and was a walk-in site. Meaning, no one could reserve it out from under us and we could extend up to 2-weeks as we desired. We love first come first serve!
On the way to register, a few friends from the Escapee’s Boomers group came over to greet us, as they too had sought refuge here after the fiesta. Instant sunset happy hour was planned.
In this RVing lifestyle there seems to be no shortage of social life – that’s for sure. It’s becoming harder and harder for us to find solitude these days. Thankfully, most fellow full timers get it – and after happy hour is enjoyed, everyone appreciates their own space and time.
We’ve been thoroughly enjoying Cochiti Lake. The weekends tend to attract weekend campers from the surrounding bigger cities. We love seeing folks get out and enjoying our beautiful country, making memories and connecting with each other. But we sure do love the sound of them packing up their music makers, generators, toys, barking dogs and outdoor lights on Sunday morning.
The weekdays have been super quiet, and we’ve had the loop mostly to ourselves.
Peace. Quiet. Solitude. Lovely surroundings. Cheap camping. And a Verizon tower looming over us.
We’ve gotten out for long walks regularly, enjoyed kicking back and watching movies. We’ve *gasp* read books (I, The Martian), cooked meals, grilled outdoors, and worked on small household projects.
Those may not seem like big things to the outsider – but getting back to a normal life is huge for us. It’s been so long.
We’re getting caught up on work projects. Coverage? got a major map refresh, we’ve done several mobile internet advising calls, published some new content for our RV Mobile Internet Resource Center, did extensive cellular booster testing and just had more time to be engaged instead of in struggling to keep-up mode.
We’ve been enjoying and getting used to our new RV systems. We’re especially loving the hydronic heating (we’ve had a couple chilly nights). It’s so super quiet and works great.
It’s been so good. So recharging. And exactly what we needed to reset after months of really not being at home and in upheaval.
Not ready to move on, we extended until middle of this week. Since we’ve been major homebodies, we’ve barely left the campground except a day trip to Albuquerque to pick up my new computer, some provisioning and a 3-D showing of The Martian (we live SUCH exciting lives, eh??).
We hope to make it out to nearby Tent Rocks for some hiking before we leave, we keep hearing it’s spectacular.
And then we’ll likely look at the weather forecasts and choose where to move to next. Having lots of solar and huge holding tanks makes extended dry camping a breeze.
What’s Up Next?
We really don’t have much of a plan ahead. And we LOVE it!
We’re aiming to make Quartzite in mid-January – the Xscapers will have their next convergence there. We’re committed to the Escapade in Vermont in late July. Other than that.. we’ll go where the winds call us.
I think we need a few more weeks like this to get anywhere close to considering ourselves re-charged. And by golly, that’s our prime directive right now.
Cherie – did you get your new iMac? If so, I hope you did not get the 1 TB Fusion drive version. Apple decided to only include 24 GB of flash storage with it. Prior to this, a 1 TB Fusion drive from Apple meant it has a 128 GB SSD bonded together with the spinning hard drive. Guess they’re trying to save some money since they don’t have much in the way of cash reserves… 😉
Yes.. I did, with the 2TB fusion. We do our research before ordering 🙂 My 3 year old Mini had the 1T with 128 SSD.
Great – not surprised at all that you caught that even though it was a well-hidden detail! I’m curious as to your impressions of it and also why you chose the 21″ over the 27″ retina iMac? Thanks!
I’ll cover that later. Maybe. If I find time. See above. Kinda overloaded, ya know?
Yay Randy, he’s my hero as well…
glad you can find the time and place to decompress…if we had not stayed in my girl friends driveway…we would have gone where you are…but a day trip to Tent Rocks made up for it…I do hope you decide to go there…I don’t think you will be disappointed….safe travels wherever the road may take you…
DO find the time to hike around Tent Rocks. It’s a fabulous slot canyon with tricky footing here and there, and great photo ops.
Chris and Cherie, I have been following you for about a year now and enjoy every one of your posts. I will be hitting the road sometime in the summer of 2017 but am now doing as much as I can in preparation. I created a website about a month ago. Besides the hard reality of focusing on what mode I will be traveling in, and all assorted technical details, a certain amount of energy goes into mental preparation. Is this what I really want to do? I envision this new life every time I go out truck and tent camping, and indeed it does make a whole lot of sense to me! I will be seeking out more specifics as plans begin to take more definite shape and I connect with more people who are more or less doing what I intend to be doing. You guys are such a resource and inspiration! John Warren Simpson. Days of Nights: in search of dark skies. daysofnights.org
Looks like a sweet spot for some solitude. Funny how those “routine” days can be so balancing 🙂 We have that same BBQ and have been really pleased with it. Don’t see many of them so I’m glad to see it here. Enjoy NM, when the wind isn’t gusting it’s a beautiful place.
We’ve had our O-Grill 3000 for four years now, and just love it! Glad we’re not alone.
Your motorhome is looking mighty nice sitting by that lake!
Doesn’t she? Gotta admit, we still swoon a little when we turn the corner and see her sitting there.
We live in Albuquerque. Cochiti Lake is one of our nearby getaways when we don’t have much time. Take a look at the Tetilla Peak Recreation Area across the lake. It is even less populated than the main campground. Thats our favorite location.
You’re the second to recommend Tetilla.. we’ll have to check it out next time. It appears to be closed right now. Y’all have some pretty amazing places nearby to escape to.
Every time we go through a period of highly planned activities and travel, there is nothing in the world that reminds us of what we love most about RVing than kicking back in no particular place with nothing scheduled for a while. You two enjoy!
Like you.. we sure do love the travel tho! But this RVing thing is a pretty awesome lifestyle. Big hugs to you both!
I’m really glad you’re finally getting time for yourselves. It’s been too long and you both deserve it.
Thanks guys.. it feels good, for sure.
So glad you’re getting to decompress. Looks like you found the purrrrfect spot!
Nina
It is purrrfect.. Kiki is loving it! Polly would love all the trails here, and the bunnies!
Months of relatively unstructured time in beautiful country – nirvana!
Soak it up!
Yes yes yes.. nirvana it is! Can’t wait for the adventures that find us.
We really like the non-hook up side of Cochiti, I believe it is the Tetilla campground. It is much less crowded and doesn’t have so much of the partying going on, usually. Beautiful views, also. We actually like the view opposite the lake. We have found Corps of Eng. campgrounds to be more consistently nice and try to find one when we can. Glad you enjoyed the Balloon Fiesta!
We actually have a view of it out our window across the way – but looking online, seems it’s already closed for the season. Which would explain why we’ve not seen a single RV over there. Shucks, that would have been ideal to move over to 🙂 We’ll keep it in mind in the future, thanks!
It has been so intense for you guys – it is great that you finally made it through to a period where you can relax and be alone. I can totally relate to the enjoyment of normalcy and solitude (and new computer hardware and good sci-fi). Thank you for letting us into your lives but shut us out as often as needed to stay sane and content.
It’s definitely awesome to get back to a little more normal.. and NEW tech 🙂
Thanks for the review of the Cochiti Campground. It looks nice, and we love both Albuquerque and Santa Fe, so it’s it’s good to know of a decent stop not too far away. Hope you get all the recharge time you need at last!
It’s definitely a great place to get away from the big cities but keep close by for day trips. We’ll definitely be back.