Day 1 in Ruidoso

Tuesday, August 9 - How nice it was to wake up to 54 degrees this morning!  We'll probably catch colds with that drastic change.  We toured around the area today, starting out by going to Dave's nephew's cabin here.  We met Jim (cousin) and Rita last night, and Dave's sister this morning at the cabin.  They came here a few years ago to meet Dave and Mazie and Rita fell in love with the cabin they stayed in, so they built one just like it a few doors down.  When we arrived, there were two deer right across the street, and a mama deer with two fawns (they still had their spots!) walking right down below their cabin.  There are bears in that area too, but of course they stayed out of sight.  After we left there, Dave took us to the Smokey Bear Museum.  The real Smokey was found in this area in 1950 in a forest fire in the Capitan Mountains, and after a magnificent career in Washington D.C. (they even retired him), he was laid to rest here.

They have a nice little museum about Smokey, and we watched a 10-minute film that told about his rescue and the Smokey the Bear fire prevention campaign that was already underway.  We left there, had lunch at the Smokey Bear Restaurant (of course), then made a loop drive that took us through the old town of Lincoln (home of Billy the Kid).  There were lots of old buildings there, some renovated and some crumbling.

We circled back to town, then they dropped us off at the RV and took Dave's sister back to the cabin.  Joe and I rested, read, watched a little TV.  We had a little rain shower then, but it didn't amount to much.  We had clouds most of the day, and it probably only made the low 80's, very nice!!!  When Dave and Mazie got back, it was happy-hour time, then Mazie and I went back to the casino for the evening.  We had a good time, we both came out a little ahead, but I kept her out past her bedtime. 

This morning (Wednesday)  it is 57 degrees, another beautiful day in Ruidoso.