Oct 5th to 7th - to Albuquerque

Oct 5th - Mon - Las Cruces
We pulled up a list on the computer of tire shops in Las Cruces and Terry made many phone calls looking for the right tire for our 5th wheel but had no luck. One store which normally carries the right size said they could not even order one right now as the distributors were out of stock. After breakfast we went sightseeing and kept an eye out for tire shops. When we were nearly back at the RV park, we spotted a small tire shop on the other side of the divided road, made a few turns to get back to it and they actually had 6 of the tires that we needed. We made a quick trip to the park to get the spare and had the new one on in no time. Have to get lucky sometime!!
I did not want to worry about doing laundry next week so did a couple loads. Quite painless as the laundry room was very close to our site and we were able to sit out & watch TV between trips to the laundry room.

Oct 6th - Tues - to Isleta NM
We planned to stop at a PA park in Truth or Consequences (yes, that is the name of a town!) but it appeared to be in the middle of nowhere so kept on driving. Anyone familiar with New Mexico or following our progress on a map will see that we are headed north again and are very close to Albuquerque. That is because we are going to spend 4 days at the Balloon Fiesta starting tomorrow. So we ended up in the Isleta Lakes RV park which is near the Isleta Casino and a very short drive for us tomorrow to the Balloon Fiesta park.
I made a very late lunch (we didn’t want to stop as this park does not accept reservations and they had 4 sites left when we were 1 ½ hours away. Then there were at least 7 sites open when we got here!) and then we made a short trip to fill a propane bottle. Of course we had to visit the casino. Terry blew through his allowance but I got lucky on a bonus so I could give him some more money and bring part of it home. We had a sandwich before heading back to catch DWTS results.

Oct 7th - Wed - to Albuquerque
Wednesday is Seniors’ Day at the casino so we had to make a trip to take advantage of the $2.99 breakfast and $5 in free play on each card. Did not turn the free play into take home money but did use the small amount of points on our cards so breakfast only cost 33 cents! Then we dumped tanks, filled up the fresh water and headed for the Balloon Fiesta park which was about 20 minutes away. We will be dry camping here for 4 days.
Breezed through registration and were escorted to a spot with neighbors already set up on both sides. Set up and then went for a walk. It rained here last night - the evening show was canceled - and some areas are really muddy. Luckily we are on packed gravel. RVs are parked in a huge area so we took a shortcut and then got the bikes and rode around the whole thing. Next a trip to get gas for the generator and had a late lunch. Terry had started the generator before we went to get gas but after we got back and he topped up the gas, it would not start again. He had quite a bit of help but couldn’t get it running. So our neighbor Wayne said “no problem” and plugged our cord into his big generator.
We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening meeting & visiting with really nice neighbors. Wayne is from Minnesota, Gary & Karen are from Cascade Idaho, Mel & Darlene are from Vancouver B.C. and Scott is from Phoenix.