honeymoon road trip: day 3

i'm finally back to our honeymoon!  yay!  day three of our honeymoon was mostly spent shopping in santa fe.  we spent a little more time in the square, ate lunch, and then got on the road.  it wasn't a very long drive to albuquerque...or so we thought.  you see, we went to the abq (what everyone in the southwest calls albuquerque) during the balloon fiesta.  which, in case you didn't know, is apparently a really big deal.  the drive took way longer than we had anticipate, but seeing as we had eaten a late lunch, we went to get in line for the sandia peak tramway to watch the sunset and the balloon glow.

 

 gorgeous, really.

which in theory, was a really awesome idea.

unfortunately, most of the visitors for the balloon fiesta thought it was a good idea, too.  and the line looked a bit like this...

 

 

GO AWAY, PEOPLE!

so, we watched the sunset from the bottom of the mountain.  which was still AWESOME!

 SEE?!?!  i love sunsets...

and then, because kyle is an enginerd, we checked out the weights, which counterbalance the tram.  nerd.

 they are huge, they just look tiny in my pictures.  (that's what she said.)

after about two hours in line, we finally made it up to the top!  the sun had set, there were people everywhere, but we finally had our tickets, hooray!  until i saw this:

say what?

i know you can't read that and that i'm a horribly photographer, but it says that's it 39 degrees at the top.  awww, hell.  guess who forgot her coat in the car?  actually, we both didn't bring a jacket.

eventually, the car came down, we rode up in the pitch black, which was probably a good thing because apparently it looks like this on the trip:

click for source

now, i'm not afraid of heights, but this thing was packed and i just wasn't interested in falling over 1000 feet straight down.  at least, not without a parachute.

alas, we did make it to the top, here's our proof!

 a picture of us with jet black background.

i promise, it was still really beautiful, you could see for miles and it was even lightening and thundering way off in the distance, which made it special.  had i not frozen my ass off, this probably would have been one of my favorite activities on our trip!

and then we stood in line for another hour and a half to get back down.  in the freezing ass cold.  with a guy who talked our ear off the entire time.  at least he was entertaining!

and, because you know we are super nerdy like that, yes, i did take a picture of the cables that the tramway runs on.  surprisingly, not that thick.  (that's what she said.  ok, i promise i'm done with those jokes now...)