This was our first “make the drive part of the trip” vacation. Some friends were going to be traveling to Ruidoso, so we decided to make this our next family destination. We drove for 11 hours straight stopping only twice, once to fuel up and grab a quick breakfast and another to eat a late lunch. Joining us was our firstborn, Pirate Princess, who we just transferred to a forward facing car seat. She was in heaven to finally be able to see where she was going and not what she was leaving behind. We were glad she was a trooper, not crying the whole car ride, because we really wanted to get there. There isn’t much along that stretch of road on IH 10 West heading towards El Paso except dry flat desert land. Not particularly the most scenic drive I’ve ever taken.
We stayed in a modest hotel this time around getting a really great deal online for a whopping price of $39 a night. This was no dump hotel either. It also included a free Continental breakfast for every night we stayed. Can’t beat that when you’re trying to stick to a budget. Plus it was very close to everything we wanted to do. We were even able to take an icy ride in the car down a sloped road out back. Woohoo! OK, it was a little scary.
Ruidoso is a quaint little town. It offers a nice variety of things to do like shopping, skiing, gambling, and more. We went sledding and hiking at Ski Apache, drove to see the Billy the Kid Museum, adventured through the Smokey the Bear Museum, and went exploring the shops along their main drag. I think we missed the right time of year for the horse races because they weren’t running them. After a couple days of being there we heard we needed to stop by the Inn of the Gods. The Inn was inviting with beautifully decorated Christmas decor and a monumental Christmas tree. The pond outside was calm as was the cold frigid air. It was nice, but we aren’t gamblers so there really wasn’t any point in us staying there.
The trip was planned to be a six night vacation. While there was plenty of snow on the ground all around town, we hadn’t seen any fall. That was kind of what we really wanted to experience. Sure enough 2 days before we were suppose to leave we got 6 inches. We played in the snow, made snowmen, found hills to sled down, and really ate it up. We essentially got what we went there for. In San Antonio we don’t get much snow, that’s quite an understatement, so it was a nice change of pace.
This was a low key vacation, but immensely enjoyable. At 13 months old Pirate Princess enjoyed her first snow venture and we all made lasting memories.