RV city popping up at Balloon Fiesta Park
Posted at: 10/01/2012 7:08 PM
By: Stuart Dyson, Eyewitness News 4
A steady stream of RVs and campers and trailers began rolling into Albuquerque's Balloon Fiesta Park Monday, right on schedule - about six days before the Fiesta starts on Saturday.
It's the fastest-growing town in New Mexico.
It's bigger than Tatum or Texico, about the size of Raton or Ruidoso - 7,000 to 8,000 people living in about 3,500 RVs.
They're busy rolling out the Astroturf, setting up the lawn chairs, hooking up the utilities and, at one trailer, trying to resuscitate a ragged-looking cherry tomato vine growing in a galvanized bucket.
It's a way of life, a subculture - and for some retirees it's a fulltime deal.
That's the way it is for Pam Pitcher and Trisha Ogden and their husbands.
"We like it," Pam said. "Our home is where we take it now. We rented out our house in Barstow, California last year. But we've been doing it most of the time for the last five years."
"Here we are, three years later after renting our house out, living in our two ton 5th wheel," said Trisha. "Home is where we roam, and this will be home until the 8th."
But the lifestyle does require some adjustments.
"It's mainly that you can't collect anything," Pam told us while her husband pumped water into the 110 gallon tank of their RV. "You have to limit your clothes and your shoes! Those are the hardest things."
"I like to collect rocks," Trisha laughed. "But I had to stop collecting rocks, and I had to give up shoes!"
So RV City is thriving right now, but after the Fiesta is over on October 14, it will revert back to jackrabbits and prairie dogs.
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