The dark start from Albuquerque

I stuck with my tradition and left Albuquerque when the balloon crew bus headed for the fiesta park. Sunday was a hangout day, only a morning session before the world's largest balloon fiesta called it a year. 

I made a big round of good-byes to the crew, then I slipped out of Albuquerque. The crew van and balloon trailer headed west to the crew entrance just south of the Sandia Reservation. 

 It ended up the right choice for several reasons. The winds prevented flying at the morning session, the last chance for balloons to fill the skies. But getting home at 10:30 meant I missed the train derailment north of Pueblo that afternoon that killed a truck driver, turned a bridge into scrap metal, and blocked I-25 with a mountain of coal. I passed the park exits and found no traffic, as most people crowded into the fiesta for Saturday’s eclipse. In a few minutes, I had nothing but the sprawling city lights and the dark creeping back in. At times, I fought to stay awake. 

The darkness turned relentless once I passed Santa Fe. Dawn has to contend with mountains on the east. I could make out the mountain ridges along Glorieta Pass and the Pecos River Valley. The earliest light intruded as I reached Las Vegas. I wanted to stop but just proceeded into the 100 miles of high grasslands before Raton and the return of the mountains. 

Traffic wasn’t just light. I felt like I had the whole of northeastern New Mexico to myself. I could watch the shadow of my car change on the grasses without worrying about other cars anywhere. It broke up a stretch of road that needs some breaking up.

 Light played with the car’s shadow until it became lumpen and anonymous, then vanished altogether. I barreled past a truck before the one-lane stretch of Raton Pass, not wanting a 25 mph crawl over the otherwise-deserted road. 

I had no idea that the balloons did not rise above Albuquerque as I descended Raton Pass, the rows of familiar mountains – Sangre de Cristo, Spanish Peaks, Wet Mountains and Pikes Peak – reached all the way home.