July 19, 2013

Ruidoso, New Mexico

In continuation of our desire to do an annual family vacation, we returned last night from a relaxing week spent in Ruidoso, New Mexico. It's a small ski town just two hours north of El Paso that has amazing weather for the summer. Seeing as we live in Texas, a break from the heat was mainly what we were looking for when choosing a spot to travel.

Last summer we spent over a week in Oregon with our closest friends. It was also Noah's first vacation, flight, hotel, etc. He was 6 months old at the time and actually learned to crawl while we were there. We had a great time then, but what we wanted to do differently this year was pick one spot as a base camp of sorts and branch out from there.We contemplated Colorado but a friend suggested Ruidoso.

I've been dying to use www.vrbo.com (Vacation Rental By Owner) for some time and I finally got the chance! We specifically were looking for something on a river or lake that wasn't necessarily a hotel or a series of condos/cabins owned by one person. I found a quaint 2-bedroom cabin that sits right on the Ruidoso river and we ended up being more than satisfied with our find!

Using airmiles (had just enough!), we flew into El Paso (1.5 hours travel time versus a 10-hour car trip) and drove up to Ruisdoso, stopping in Alamogordo along the way. Aaron and Noah did great on the plane and we were complimented several times regarding how well-behaved they were. What I didn't mention was how I was holding my breath the entire time and praying for smooth travel. It was by the grace of God we didn't have any public meltdowns.

Alamogordo is fairly small and nondescript but we found a few things to do there such as a Museum of Space History and seriously the greatest playground I've ever seen. Noah loves rockets and space shuttles so it was all right up his alley.

































 The weather in Ruisodo never got higher than 85 degrees and our lows (due to some much needed rain in the area) were in the 40s. Since we had access to a washer and dryer at the cabin we packed half of what we needed although I probably should have brought an extra set of warm clothes.

We spent our days playing by or wading in the river, watching the deer that walked thru the neighborhood and all around the house, watched hummingbirds and went downtown to the shops and to eat. We did take a couple of day trips. Ski Apache up the mountain has a gondola ride to the top of the peak that was worth the winding roads to get there. Beautiful views! We were only an hour away from Roswell so of course had to visit there (mostly to say we'd been there). Unless you're a huge UFO/Alien fanatic and want to talk theories with the locals, it's mostly a touristy place with a couple of shops to get your souvenir fix but it was worth it for the most part. Our final day trip was to Capitan, NM to the Smokey Bear Historical Park where the original Smokey Bear was first found and then later buried there at the park.



Deer and Noah staring each other down

Ski Apache Gondola

Aaron having a drink with an alien in Roswell








































































































The best part about the trip was the weather! Even if it was drizzling or rainy we still enjoyed it. The boys adjusted to being in a strange house and slept great. It was nice to be able to have a room for Noah to take naps and a full kitchen and deck to cook meals when we wanted and to eat outside. Noah ended up catching a cold virus more than halfway thru and then proceeded to give it to Aaron and then the husband. Not that I'm complaining but I always seem to be left out of the loop when sickness goes thru our family. I'm very thankful to be able to be on my feet and be able to care for my boys.

The only flight home was an evening flight which got us home around 9:30pm - well past bedtime. So aside from a toddler with pent-up energy at the airport as we made our way off the plane and to our car via shuttle, everyone was asleep when we got home and we were able to smoothly transfer them to bed.

Noah was so excited to be home when he woke up this morning. He was rediscovering all his toys here and "helped" me begin unpacking - a task I obviously wasn't quite prepared to start. I thought that might be my biggest obstacle to work on this weekend but it turns out I have an even bigger issue...computer space. As I'm uploading photos from my camera it seems my disc is completely full. Ugh! So while I'd like to include more/better pics, what I have now is what I'll have to live with until later.

I'm so glad to be home. If only we could have brought the weather back with us.

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