Wednesday and Thursday in Ruidoso

Wednesday-Thursday, August 10-11 - I really wondered what we were going to do for a whole week here in Ruidoso, but there seems to be more things to do than there is time to do them.  Wednesday, Joe, Mazie and I went to Walmart to pick up a few groceries, and Joe greased the RV.  As we were driving through town, this huge RV, towing a huge truck (like a Budget truck) passed us.  Made our little old Explorer look like a toy behind our rig.

Then Mazie and I went back to the casino to try our luck again.  She has found a machine that is very good to her, so she is addicted.  Then it was time to pick up the guys and go out to Jim and Rita's for the steak barbeque.  They have a beautiful cabin, in a beautiful setting with a high deck overlooking the distant mountains.

While Dave and Jim were grilling the steaks, we heard a dog that sounded like he was in distress.  Rita raced out the front door -- at first she thought it was her dog, but it wasn't -- and that mamma deer we saw yesterday was stomping a dog with her hooves.  The dog finally was able to get up and run off, but the deer stood across the road for a long time, while Rita checked out the dog.

We sat down to our wonderful steak dinner, and I could see across the street where that same mamma deer was grazing and her two fawns were nursing.  So she must have them bedded down pretty close to Jim and Rita's house, and that's why she was so protective when the dog showed up.    It certainly added some excitement to the evening.

Thursday morning, we all got together for breakfast at a local restaurant, then Dave took us, Mazie, and his sister, out on another tour.  We stopped at the Merchant Marine Cemetery, which has lots of military graves, and even some graves of prisoners of war from WWII.  We could see forever out here, and the scenery was beautiful.

Then we went to the Ft. Stanton Museum, which dates back to the Indian wars.  We could not enter most of the buildings, but we did see the museum and a short video of its history.

They hold reenactments out here every year in August -- we missed that by one weekend.  We finished the tour here and drove back to the cabin, where we visited for a while.  Dave and Catherine seem to be enjoying each other's company.

We visited for a while in their very comfortable cabin, then went back to the campground.  Jim and Rita were planning on going golfing, but a thunderstorm came through so they had to cancel.  It rained pretty hard as we drove through town, and sprinkled off and on most of the afternoon.

After a short rest, Mazie and I went back to our favorite casino, but she was never able to play her machine.  Then we came back to pick up the guys because we were meeting Jim, Rita and Catherine for dinner (we are not going hungry here!).  When we came back from that, Joe decided he would go to the casino with us for a while, so off we went again.  Mazie had a good night -- she got back on her machine, but Joe and I didn't do so well.  The temperature stayed in the 70s today, and even though it rained, it was a beautiful day out of the heat.