The Funroes in Albuquerque

 Albuquerque is just a fun word to spell!  So after several days of meetings we left and drove the hour down the road to Albuquerque.  We had about 24 hours here.  This first picture is out our motel window.  Beautiful mountains.

 One thing Kaitlin learned on this trip is that my camera has an auto timer and will take three pictures in a row.  I won't bore you with all the pictures but here is one we got Carl in.

Kaitlin and I were sitting in the lobby of our motel in Santa Fe, just enjoying the beautiful architecture when someone told us to go outside and have a good time.  We smiled and then said to each other we can have fun in a mud puddle.

 There is lots of sky in NM and we took a million cloud pictures.

 Carl travels a lot.  When you travel with Carl you don't check your bags.  You just don't.  Also, he doesn't like to eat at chain restaurants so he finds places on tripadvisor.com or urbanspoon or food network link to driveins, diners and dives.  My brother Charles' rule is at least 7 cars at a restaurant before he'll eat there and I have a new one- windows-, It must have windows!  Some places Carl picks out I refuse to eat at so he usually presents me with options.  I'll soon do a whole post on where we ate but here is one place.  It was good Southern food.  We had breakfast there.  We were the only tourists.  How do I know that?  Everyone in the place knew everyone else but us.  But they were welcoming to us.  They didn't even ask if I wanted chillies in my eggs !!

 After breakfast we went to the Balloon Museum.  Below are pictures made in a photo spot inside.  I think they portray our personalities well.

what am I doing up here!

look how cool it looks from up here!

yawn, oh well, another day in a hot air balloon

 Have you heard about the balloon races in Albuquerque?  Have you ever wondered why they are there.  This pictures tells you why.  I never knew.  The mountains from the first pictures are the mountains that help make up the box.  Very interesting!  The museum was very fascinating and I highly recommend it.

 When the big area is not used for balloons it is a putting green.  Here is a big picture window that looks out on the staging area for the balloon festival.

downtown Albuquerque

There are a few tall buildings here.  

It was a great trip.  It was fun to laugh with Carl and Kaitlin.  It was good to see Carl's world so I know how to pray for him.  It was mind blowing to think that the terrain changes so much just a few states over from us.  Travel is fun but I agree with Dorothy 'There's no place like home'