Cool Ruidoso, New Mexico

Donna and I just returned from a 4 night stay in beautiful Ruidoso, New Mexico. We primarily went there to escape the heat of San Angelo. We were very successful in doing that.

For those of you not familiar with this little mountain town, let me give you some background.

First, Ruidoso is just under 400 miles from our home in San Angelo. Now, if we want to see mountains, the Davis Mountains in West Texas are a bit closer at about 250 miles. And we love the Davis Mountains. But the mountains in Ruidiso are true alpine type mountains. In fact, if you live where we do and you want to do a bit of snow skiing in the winter, then Ruidoso and nearby Cloudcroft are the closest places to do so. I read somewhere once that Cloudcroft is the southernmost ski area in the Rocky Mountains.

Ruidoso sits at an elevation of just over 6,900 feet. It is surrounded by the beautiful pine-covered Sierra Blanca mountain range, and there are numerous babbling brooks throughout those mountains, including Rio Ruidoso (which translates as "noisy river"). The range is dominated by 12,000 foot Sierra Blanca, home of Ski Apache, a ski resort owned and operated by the Mescalero Apache tribe. The tribe also operates nearby Inn of the Mountain Gods resort, which includes a casino.

The city of Ruidoso has a population of about 10,000, but the surrounding areas brings the total population to about 20,000 or more.

We stayed in a hotel in the "Midtown" area of Ruidoso, which is an area dominated by tourist shops, restaurants, and related businesses. We were easily able to walk 3 or 4 blocks and find a place to eat. Each day started cool, usually about 60 degrees although one morning was in the mid-50s. It would warm to the mid- to upper-70s by noon or so, then the rain would move in, cooling things back down. Yes, it rained all 4 days we were there, roughly about the same time each day. Donna wore a light jacket everywhere she went, and I wore one a time or two as well. It was great! We wanted an escape from the heat, and we got it.

We had a schedule of activities everyday, so we stayed pretty busy. I'll be posting our activities as quickly as I can; I'm still processing the pictures.

I did not take many pictures of Ruidoso itself, but I'll share what I did take. But I think I have some good pictures of the surrounding country, and we did see quite a bit of it.

For now, I'll leave you with the following pictures to hold you until my next post.

This is our hotel, located on a rise and surrounded by pine trees.

This photo was taken a few blocks east of our hotel, and it looks west towards Sierra Blanca Peak.

A sampling of some of the shops along Sudderth. Love to see those trees!

We awoke our first morning to discover a herd of elk grazing behind our hotel. What a great way to start the day. Imagine seeing elk right in the middle of town!

I included this picture to show you how undisturbed the elk were by traffic along the side streets behind the hotel.

Nice shot of these female elk (cows).

This is the only male (bull) I saw in the bunch.

Love this shot of the calf nursing.