Well, it’s that inevitable time---preparing to travel home. We are now in Albuquerque at a Marriott Fairfield, checked in and unlaxing. We checked out of Ruidoso this morning, and made the drive up (North) to Albuquerque.
Yesterday we made the 12-mile drive winding up the road, complete with old cable style guardrails, 10,000 feet up to the Ski Apache on top of the mountain above Ruidoso. The views were again incredible, but the leaves were now more to the dark yellow as opposed to the bright yellow last week. My recording on my backup brain (my little Olympus digital voice recorder I couldn’t live without) went something like this: “Here we are up on top of the mountain at The Ski Apache. It’s pretty high up here and it’s beautiful and high and we liked it and we stopped to look around and the ski lifts look really scary.” That pretty much covers the third in our magical mountain accent tours. We made three over 10,000 foot assents on this trip, one more beautiful than the other. New Mexico in Fall is a strong rival for our trip in New England last fall. On the way down we stopped at an overlook for some great pictures. From the overlook you could see The Inn of The Mountain Gods Resort and Casino on the beautiful little lake nestled in the mountains.
This was our next destination. The Mescalero Apache tribe runs both Ski Apache and The Resort. The Resort cannot be too old. On the road leading up to it, you pass what appears to be an abandoned restaurant and inn that was probably the predecessor of the current Inn/Casino complex. The new complex rivals anything in the area. The casino is very large, and they have table games. The lobby of the Inn overlooks the beautiful lake through a wall of glass, and fountains abound. All of the floors are highly polished terrazzo, and the common areas are resplendent in Native American art. The usually ubiquitous MUZAK is replaced by non-stop Indian flute music. At first it is a little annoying, but after a while it becomes soothing and very haunting. We had a nice time visiting, and my other companions spent some time donating some money to the Apache tribe before we left.
We wandered down from the Mountain of The Gods back to Ruidoso on the lookout for some dinner. We wanted to try the barbeque place that had fed us when we were at the Cowboy Symposium, but they were closed for the week. (they probably take a week off to rest up after feeding the mega crowds at the Symposium) So we settled for heading back down the street to the Circle J, also barbeque. They had a great deal on senior plates with a meat, home made yeast roll, and two sides for $6.50 so we were all over that. Vickie and Jerry went for ribs, Brenda had a stew they were offering, and I signed in with brisket. It was good hearty barbeque, but lacked the polished presentation of the “Can’t Stop Smokin” food we had at the Symposium. After dinner it was back to the condo for packing and an evening split between CSI and political BS. (plenty of political BS with the emphasis on the S)
This morning we headed out of town and ironically we passed a stand with a sign, “Last chance for green chilies”, so goodbye to Ruidoso, Santa Fe, and the hanging chilies. We were headed for Albuquerque route to be determined. We took Rt. 37 back out of town to NM 380 and 380 across to Carrizozo NM. We stayed on 380 across the Valley Of The Fires till we crossed the Rio Grande (which was running in high flood with very brown water) and got on NM 1 headed north. It turned out NM 1 ran pretty much alongside I-25, so we jumped on the Interstate. Our first surprise was the 75 MPH speed limit on I-25. Jerry set the cruise on about 79.8 and we boogied. (I knew because I have a speedometer on my GPS navigation console, also the altitude) The quite reasonable and distance eating speed limit on I-25 made me wonder: do you think the fine political servants from NM will be supporting the ludicrous agenda in Congress to reinstate the National 55 MPH speed limit? I don’t think so! One thing I noted to myself; if you really want to see the back country in NM, be sure to rent an SUV cause there are a lot of dirt and two rut roads. Then as we were riding along at our designated 79.8, a New Mexico State Trooper came by us in a black and white Crown Vic like we were stopped. He then proceeded to vanish into the distance. He didn’t even have his blinky lights on—I had no idea a Crown Vic would run that fast.
We were needing some lunch, so we dropped off the second exit for Belen NM. Instinct took us to the older section of town, and we landed at the Circle-T Burger. The Circle-T was established in 1958 and was a Belen staple. We went in and ordered (after Vickie had a discussion with the counter girl about the relative heat of their “chilie”-which has nothing in common with what Wendy’s serves in a cup). The girl told her in no uncertain terms all their Chilie was hot, but they were out of the red they only had green, oh and that’s why they had “The Tortilla Burger”, with no more explanation. Vickie had some Nacho’s with green chilie on the side. Brenda and I got hot dogs (and I just had to try the fried bean burrito). Jerry got a burger with fries. The food was excellent, and unique. The hotdogs were split and grilled, served on toasted buns. The burrito was deep fried and very crispy. Jerry commented, that the fries tasted like they were fried in “real grease” not that stuff with the trans-fats removed. We highly enjoyed our visit to Belen, and while I was contemplating how to pronounce Belen, a nice local resident came by, and I asked him. He proudly told us it was pronounced BaLin, which means Bethlehem in Spanish. Once more we found the real NM by being open to the adventure at hand.
We continued uneventfully to Albuquerque and checked into the Fairfield Inn with the Brigham Young University Women’s Soccer Team (cougars). They are here to play the University of NM Lobo’s. Jerry spent some quality time riding up and down the elevator with them to socialize. (might have taken a few rides) We had great hors d’oeuvres from all the cheese, dip, veggies, fruit, and chips we brought from the condo in Vickie’ little cooler which ended up being dinner. We had a big time looking up crazy stuff on the Internet, and adjourned for bed early. We figured our timing, and we can load the car at 06:20, and be at the breakfast at 06:25. It really starts at 06:30 but they will have all the stuff out by then. We leave here by 06:45 or 50, and make our plane at 08:35 no sweat. The airport and rental car return are 7 minutes down the road from here. I'll be sleeping with my flying anexiety tonight, but atleast it's in a nice king bead. Wish us luck.
More later,
Yesterday we made the 12-mile drive winding up the road, complete with old cable style guardrails, 10,000 feet up to the Ski Apache on top of the mountain above Ruidoso. The views were again incredible, but the leaves were now more to the dark yellow as opposed to the bright yellow last week. My recording on my backup brain (my little Olympus digital voice recorder I couldn’t live without) went something like this: “Here we are up on top of the mountain at The Ski Apache. It’s pretty high up here and it’s beautiful and high and we liked it and we stopped to look around and the ski lifts look really scary.” That pretty much covers the third in our magical mountain accent tours. We made three over 10,000 foot assents on this trip, one more beautiful than the other. New Mexico in Fall is a strong rival for our trip in New England last fall. On the way down we stopped at an overlook for some great pictures. From the overlook you could see The Inn of The Mountain Gods Resort and Casino on the beautiful little lake nestled in the mountains.
This was our next destination. The Mescalero Apache tribe runs both Ski Apache and The Resort. The Resort cannot be too old. On the road leading up to it, you pass what appears to be an abandoned restaurant and inn that was probably the predecessor of the current Inn/Casino complex. The new complex rivals anything in the area. The casino is very large, and they have table games. The lobby of the Inn overlooks the beautiful lake through a wall of glass, and fountains abound. All of the floors are highly polished terrazzo, and the common areas are resplendent in Native American art. The usually ubiquitous MUZAK is replaced by non-stop Indian flute music. At first it is a little annoying, but after a while it becomes soothing and very haunting. We had a nice time visiting, and my other companions spent some time donating some money to the Apache tribe before we left.
We wandered down from the Mountain of The Gods back to Ruidoso on the lookout for some dinner. We wanted to try the barbeque place that had fed us when we were at the Cowboy Symposium, but they were closed for the week. (they probably take a week off to rest up after feeding the mega crowds at the Symposium) So we settled for heading back down the street to the Circle J, also barbeque. They had a great deal on senior plates with a meat, home made yeast roll, and two sides for $6.50 so we were all over that. Vickie and Jerry went for ribs, Brenda had a stew they were offering, and I signed in with brisket. It was good hearty barbeque, but lacked the polished presentation of the “Can’t Stop Smokin” food we had at the Symposium. After dinner it was back to the condo for packing and an evening split between CSI and political BS. (plenty of political BS with the emphasis on the S)
This morning we headed out of town and ironically we passed a stand with a sign, “Last chance for green chilies”, so goodbye to Ruidoso, Santa Fe, and the hanging chilies. We were headed for Albuquerque route to be determined. We took Rt. 37 back out of town to NM 380 and 380 across to Carrizozo NM. We stayed on 380 across the Valley Of The Fires till we crossed the Rio Grande (which was running in high flood with very brown water) and got on NM 1 headed north. It turned out NM 1 ran pretty much alongside I-25, so we jumped on the Interstate. Our first surprise was the 75 MPH speed limit on I-25. Jerry set the cruise on about 79.8 and we boogied. (I knew because I have a speedometer on my GPS navigation console, also the altitude) The quite reasonable and distance eating speed limit on I-25 made me wonder: do you think the fine political servants from NM will be supporting the ludicrous agenda in Congress to reinstate the National 55 MPH speed limit? I don’t think so! One thing I noted to myself; if you really want to see the back country in NM, be sure to rent an SUV cause there are a lot of dirt and two rut roads. Then as we were riding along at our designated 79.8, a New Mexico State Trooper came by us in a black and white Crown Vic like we were stopped. He then proceeded to vanish into the distance. He didn’t even have his blinky lights on—I had no idea a Crown Vic would run that fast.
We were needing some lunch, so we dropped off the second exit for Belen NM. Instinct took us to the older section of town, and we landed at the Circle-T Burger. The Circle-T was established in 1958 and was a Belen staple. We went in and ordered (after Vickie had a discussion with the counter girl about the relative heat of their “chilie”-which has nothing in common with what Wendy’s serves in a cup). The girl told her in no uncertain terms all their Chilie was hot, but they were out of the red they only had green, oh and that’s why they had “The Tortilla Burger”, with no more explanation. Vickie had some Nacho’s with green chilie on the side. Brenda and I got hot dogs (and I just had to try the fried bean burrito). Jerry got a burger with fries. The food was excellent, and unique. The hotdogs were split and grilled, served on toasted buns. The burrito was deep fried and very crispy. Jerry commented, that the fries tasted like they were fried in “real grease” not that stuff with the trans-fats removed. We highly enjoyed our visit to Belen, and while I was contemplating how to pronounce Belen, a nice local resident came by, and I asked him. He proudly told us it was pronounced BaLin, which means Bethlehem in Spanish. Once more we found the real NM by being open to the adventure at hand.
We continued uneventfully to Albuquerque and checked into the Fairfield Inn with the Brigham Young University Women’s Soccer Team (cougars). They are here to play the University of NM Lobo’s. Jerry spent some quality time riding up and down the elevator with them to socialize. (might have taken a few rides) We had great hors d’oeuvres from all the cheese, dip, veggies, fruit, and chips we brought from the condo in Vickie’ little cooler which ended up being dinner. We had a big time looking up crazy stuff on the Internet, and adjourned for bed early. We figured our timing, and we can load the car at 06:20, and be at the breakfast at 06:25. It really starts at 06:30 but they will have all the stuff out by then. We leave here by 06:45 or 50, and make our plane at 08:35 no sweat. The airport and rental car return are 7 minutes down the road from here. I'll be sleeping with my flying anexiety tonight, but atleast it's in a nice king bead. Wish us luck.
More later,
Wes
1 comment:
I didn't realize we did this much. We must be tired. Great adventure!!
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