Balloon Fiesta, Albuquerque, NM (October 2011)

Yah, this is a little late but I thought I'd post a few photos of this so I can start posting some more recent stuff.

My friend Lucy and I took a road trip down to Albuquerque, NM to see the annual Balloon Fiesta and to make up for a trip to Santa Fe that was a couple years overdue.

I haven't really had the chance to go through and edit any of these so here are a few snapshots from that trip: 

 After the "Mass Ascension" we explored the festivities a bit.

The roadtrip part was pretty exciting too. There are a lot of cool old towns in New Mexico.

We camped in a different place every night in Lucy's sweet popup tent that we barely fit in.

Some nights we ended up sleeping in the car.

We made some good vegetarian camping food.

Lighting credits go to Lucy and her flashlight. 

Can't take a bad picture when you're camping with a fellow photographer...

 We camped at Bandelier National Monument one night and got to re-visit the Kivas and cliff-dwellings I saw with Matt this last summer.

... and did some intense hiking. I still think it may have been better to pay the $2 to take the shuttle back to the campsite.

Visited Santa Fe. Such a cool place! So much history.

This is the oldest church in the US.

Made out of straw and mud.

Here is the cathedral with the miraculous staircase.

Its a super cool story. 

Some mysterious traveller built this staircase for the church's choir who had been wanting one for so long but hadn't been able to come up with the money to build it.

The architect built it without charging and left as quickly as he came.

It is a full, double 360 degree spiral without a center pole and it is made only out of wood.

I guess this has been studied for years by architects and has even been x-rayed and no one has been able to figure out how it can stand, let alone function for all these years.

Pretty cool.

On our way home we stopped by Pagosa Springs, CO and put our tired, dirty feet in the only spring that was free. It was amazing. 

Our campsite in Pagosa Springs was perfect!

We made some fancy foil dinners

... and headed home.

Family Pictures

Just as a side note... that's not supposed to be a serious face on my dad. Kind of looks like it when its small though. But that's his "yah sure" face. The one we see a lot!

What's going on.

Here's a quick post to catch everyone up on what's been going on.

First of all... Matt graduated! That last semester was crazy for him. He was flying out almost every weekend to either interview for a job or to do a presentation for Bayer Healthcare.

But the semester ended well, though somewhat anticlimactically. 

Since Matt graduated in the winter there was no walking ceremony so the only real confirmation we have that he completed all his classes was the diploma we got in the mail when we came home from Christmas break in Seattle.

After spending more time in the air than on the ground interviewing (well it feels like it anyway) Matt was given a few offeres and we were relieved all his hard work paid off (we were relieved again when we found out he wasn't going to fail any of his classes he neglected the entire time)

I didn't know half the difficulty was deciding which job to take. They were in completely different places, and seemed to lead to very different futures.

So long story short... we're going with Dow Chemical!!!

It sounds like a pretty sweet job even though Matt will travel a lot. I will let him explain it in another post  because I think I get it until I hear him talk about it and then I realize I have no idea. 

One thing also taking away from the excitement of Matt's graduation is that this job doesn't start until June. So we have half a year to..... do.... something...? Don't know what it is yet. Isn't a degree supposed to help with this sort of thing?

Anyways. For the first six months we'll be living in Midland, MI

I believe it is located approximately 

here...

Midland is the home of Dow Chemical but since Matt will be over a territory we won't be living there.

After his 6 months of charm school we'll get placed in one of these beautiful cities:

Atlanta

Chicago

Philadelphia

Or we could end up in Houston...

a joke.

There are a couple cities that are also a possibility but they are pretty slim.

So until December-ish we won't know where we will end up. This wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't been saying that LAST year since I thought we'd get a job and get placed right away.

I'm definitely not complaining though. 

We're stoked.

I dont know why it is getting to be so difficult to find time to blog. So here is a random post from the Disneyland trip last year. I've only had time to scan one small piece of film from the numerous rolls so here is that... 

Dumbo Ride!  This was our first ride on our first day at Disneyland. I used my split-frame camera for this.

New Orleans

A few weeks after St Louis, we went to New Orleans. Also a very cool, very historic place to visit.

We were there for a 3-day weekend and although it looks overcast, we did not escape the Texas heat for this trip.

Here are some things we saw:

Old Cemetary. People have to be buried above ground because of the high water table.

There was a hugh mix of old and new tombs.

There were also a bunch of Voodoo tombs covered in X's and random "gifts" in exchange for some luck.

This is the steamboat Natchez. You can take a ride on it and listen to Jazz while eating dinner but like everything in New Orleans, it costs about $50. So we stuck with the live jazz in the streets. It is everywhere!

We visited the Bayou

Experienced some culture

And we ATE! We ate a lot.

We got to sample beignets from the famous Cafe Du Monde

We tried the original Mufaletto from the Central Grocer

And of course we tried some real Southern food

This was my favorite, gumbo and a garlic oyster po' boy from Liuzza's by the Track. We had some pretty amazing turtle soup and catfish from Mandina's

This beauty is called a shoe sole. Its heaven. But not even this shoe sole could wake up Matt by the end of our trip. 

The last night we drove to Baton Rouge to check it out. The drive was pretty. The highways are crazy. They go over the water for miles and miles. Right through the swamp.