Ruidoso Road Trip

[Disney_traveler]

Hello all! For anyone's interested in a little report about a Texas and Southeast New Mexico road trip, I thought I would write up our recent 9 day trip. It will be a little light on pictures, but hopefully you will enjoy!

About Me
Hi! I'm Samantha! I have itchy feet (metaphorically speaking) and there is always some kind of travel on my radar. Being a teacher at a school with a traditional calendar, my travel is limited to Spring Break, Christmas Break, and Summer Break.

Trip Itinerary
Day 1: Home to Ozona, Texas
B: None
L: Raising Canes
D: Raising Canes
Day 2: Ozona, Texas to Ruidoso, New Mexico
B: Holiday Inn Express
L: Blakes Lotaburger, Carlsbad
D: Gathering of Nations Buffet, Inn of the Mountain Gods
Day 3: Inn of the Mountain Gods & Lincoln County Grill
B: Broken Arrow Tap Room, Inn of the Mountain Gods
L: Lincoln County Grill
D: Broken Arrow Tap Room, Inn of the Mountain Gods
Day 4: Sightseeing Ruidoso to Cloudcroft
Brunch: The Old Apple Barn
Late Lunch: Can't Stop Smoking BBQ
Late Dinner: Big Game Sports Bar
Day 5: Shopping, gambling & a comedy show
B: none
L: Gathering of Nations Buffet
Happy Hour snacks: LOL Comedy Club
Late dinner: Broken Arrow Tap House
Day 6: Gambling & Bingo
B: Gathering of Nations Buffet
L: The Little Arbor snack counter
D: Gathering of Nations Buffet
Day 7: Back to Ozona
B: Snack bag
L: Classics Frozen Custard
D: Classics Frozen Custard
Day 8: Sightseeing to San Antonio
B: Holiday Inn Express
L: Gas Station junk food
D: Zio's
Day 9: Beauty & The Beast at the Drafthouse then home
B: none
L: Alamo Drafthouse
Obviously this was a very laid back and relaxing trip with a lot of eating, which felt a bit strange for me (except for the eating part) as I like to plan everything out and be go go go nonstop. Usually I come home needing a vacation because of vacation!

 

[Disney_traveler]

It's A Long Way Down the Holiday Road

Day 1: Home to Ozona, Tx

After working a full Friday, coming home, cleaning house, doing laundry, packing and what not, it was a late night. Add to that the excitement of a road trip vacay and I didn't sleep well SO instead of being out the door at 7:30am I "slept in" a little and we left around 8:30am. We weren't in a big hurry as today was just a driving day. We made a stop in San Antonio to hopefully catch a quick haircut with our favorite aesthetician, but she was booked till noon and we didn't want to wait that long.

I had done some research on the town of Ozona and it looked to have about the same meal options as the town we live in with the addition of Sonic and Subway. As we had received some Raising Cane's gift cards, we decided to use the and stock up for both lunch and dinner.


We stopped for gas and ended up giving one of the chicken strips to a friendly feline at the gas station. We hit some heavy traffic around Boerne which seems to be the norm lately. It usually is just people making their own traffic jam for no reason. Passing through this way are some other good food options of Rudy's BBQ and Popo's. Rudy's is a chain in Texas but the original is on I-10. Popo's is a small mom and pop type restaurant with a massive souvenir plate collection along the walls. We wanted to move on down the road, so we opted for Canes. There was rumored to be some strong storms possible, and we didn't want to be in the middle.

As Mom drives (did I mention she's my travel buddy?) I use the roadside America app and roadtrippers.com and the official Texas Travel guide to see what's around. I've never been to any of the Texas caves (there are several) and saw Caverns of Sonora. Mom has been to one (Innerspace Caverns) and said she remembers a lot of frogs and lizards (not her thing). I told her not to worry, it said this was a dry cave. Then I kept reading and it said 380 steps.....ummmmm.....nope, not today. We kept on and saw a sign for Fort McKavett. Did some more research and we took a small backroads detour to that. It was redone and all and we took pictures from the road, but didn't pay the $5 to go in. Instead we went through the cemetery next door. We like seeing old cemeteries and this one had something we had never seen, one monument included a large concrete block with a plaque that read it had been that family's front step for 40 years.

We carried on to our hotel for the night--the Holiday Inn Express in Ozona. I like to stay at HIEs and had points for this night. I usually grab a rolly cart as I go in, Mom loads, I check in, then I take rolly cart to room and she parks nearest the room she can. Unfortunately, I didn't see any carts and started to panic. We pack a lot and I get paranoia about leaving stuff in the trunk. I already have listed a low floor in my preferences and we got a first floor room right by a side door. As we come in door, we see all rolly carts were in a different place than usual!

After unloading, we decided to do a driving tour of the small town of Ozona.


Smack in the center of the sheep and goat area of Texas, we were right across from a feed store that used to be the wool and mohair depository and an old abandoned "house" that looked like an old doctor office. Further in town we also saw what we believe was once a funeral home. It is now a house for sale if anyone is looking for a fixer upper! We also toured the extremely large 2 section cemetery. This time we saw a whitetail fawn snuggled up on the ground. Even talking to it did not spook it.

We headed back to the room and relaxed while having our Canes leftovers and watching the weather. There were 2 very small storms our west by Fort Stockton and BOTH were labeled with storm warnings. One possibly included nickel size hail, the other......TENNIS BALL SIZE HAIL! We brainstormed what to do should they come and remembered a self serve car wash down the road. I stayed up and monitored the weather which slowly inched our way, but luckily disintegrated right before it got to us.

Whew, crisis averted, we went to sleep and readied ourselves for another day.

 

[queenofthehive]

Enjoyed reading the beginning of your trip report. Loved to hear about your various stops along the way. It is interesting to see old towns. I always try to imagine the families that used to live in those old houses during their day. The caves sound awesome! Side note, I grew up in Texas (DFW area) and went to Texas Tech. That area is tumbleweed city - I am truly enjoying your report. Thank you for sharing it with us.

 

[Disney_traveler]

Welcome to Good Burger, Home of the Good burger! Can I take your order?
Day 2: Ozona to Ruidoso

We let our internal alarm clocks wake us up as we were a bit nervous and restless about the storms the night before. This is day one of the best parts of Holiday Inn Express......CINNAMON ROLLS! I loooove their cinnamon rolls! Truthfully, my go to chain hotels are Drury Plaza and Holiday Inn Express.....for their food.

So after some carb-loading, we packed up our massive amount of luggage into our tiny car, fueled up, purchased a couple 12-packs of soda, filled up our RTIC cups and headed out.
Temperature was around 46 degrees so it was considerably cooler than back home. As we were driving the car beeped, said tire pressure was low. Uh oh. So we pulled over in Fort Stockton at our 285 turn off and checked tires and they were what they usually are, but temps must have them fluctuating so we pumped in a wee bit to make the sensor happy. Now this Stripes/Sunoco used to have one of those rotating dessert displays that had awesome layered chocolate pudding, whip cream and crushed Oreos. It was something I looked forward to. The last time through a couple summers ago, it was later in the day and the case was empty. I was bummed then but hopeful for the next time. Imagine my horror when I walked in and even the display case was gone. Nooooooooo! Well, I didn't really need it anyway.....

Back on the road we passed through Pecos and edged closer to the NM state line. We were quickly, passed by a Pecos Co sheriff and an ambulance and then met a line of stopped cars in our lane.....then 2 more cops...and a fire truck....then another ambulance.....not looking good. Now out here on 285 is a pretty shoddy road traveled mainly by 18'wheelers going to water dump stations in the oilfield area. Well we sat for 30 minutes and then were let through and it was a horrible 2 18 wheeler trucks. Both badly mangled and evidently there was some fire. There were so many bits of engine everywhere!

Finally we made it into New Mexico and saw the brightly painted "Whites City" billboards proclaiming great souvenirs, snacks, etc at the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns. Having never been that way, we decided to detour. I could easily see a way to Ruidoso from there. This would be a BIG disappointment. The billboard signs are the only bright spot. It's a rundown former big time stop. Now souvenirs are dusty basic items, trash was overflowing, bathrooms (well ladies side) didn't have doors but plastic shower curtains.....the thin kind from Dollar Tree.....trash overflowing here too....but when you gotta go, you gotta go.
Inside the cafe was no longer existent but had a dusty shelf of atoms chips and sour gummy worms. Mom said a sign said the cafe across the street was open. I can't remember name, I think sign said Cactus Cafe or Cavern Cafe. I'm remembering some alliteration. Anyways, so we go to cross street and the name isn't even the same. I know you are probably thinking it must have meant another one, but there ISNT another one. There is literally this souvenir/gas stop, some Travelodge/Rodeway Inn and the one restaurant. Ok, we decided to make a go of it. Restaurant also has a large (empty) bar area, a room with make-do putt putt golf and then the tiny restaurant. We seat ourselves and are given a menu only to find that to have green or red chile (a NM staple) on ANYTHING is an extra $1.00. Want Christmas? (NM term for a little red and green) that'll be $2.00. Want to add cheese to your burger? $1.00 extra....nah we left before even ordering drinks. I got us headed towards the town of Carlsbad.......I KNEW there was food we wanted there.

This leads us to our oasis in the dessert......Blakes Lotaburger!
A little back story......
During our first road trip west, we kept seeing these restaurants/burgerstands in NM and decided to give it a try. It was love at first bite. We get an Itzaburger combo with seasoned fries and green chile on the burger. It's the smaller of the burgers but sooooooo filling. The burn from green chile is nothing like jalapeños or sriracha or anything else. It's its own burn.....a slow burn......a good burn.....

We took a side road to travel through the Lincoln National Forest and admired the trees and small patches of snow as we neared our destination. Soon we had arrived at what I would come to call our "base of operations" for the week: Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort and Casino.

In December I had been plotting Spring Break ideas. First I was gearing to Santa Fe....but the Drury I was eyeing used to be a hospital and it just creeped me out. One day message me and I'll tell you about a taqueria here at home I won't eat at and why. Anyways, so then I looked into here. Rooms usually run close to $200 a night but I wasn't buying that. I managed to find us a 2 Queen superior room with a balcony and mountain view. Even better was it was on the "ground" floor. I say it in quotes because that's the 5th floor. I could spend a whole thread talking about how comfortable the beds were! Room had a mini fridge, no microwave, bathrobes and a huge vanity.

Our first thing was freshen up and go push that button! We visited with the one armed bandits for a bit; winning and losing evenly. Then decided we were ready to eat and kickback.

Dinner would be the Gathering of Nations Buffet. It's a smaller casino Buffet, but included a sushi area at the front, a salsa bar, a southwest grill, a Asian section, omelette station (always open), traditional comfort food, Italian with create your own pasta and of course dessert. Highlights included: cheesy and spicy chilaquiles, Apache fry bread (which I would gorge on), cubes of cheese and a great pasta salad and well seasoned roast beef. I ate until I was miserable and then ate more....hey that's what vacations (and stretchy pants!) are for, right?

We went back to our room, sat on our balcony, looked at stars that seemed close enough to grab, contemplated learning how to call a bull elk and then cursed ourselves for NOT packing sweatpants and Ugg boots. We had remembered what the highs would be when packing, but completely disregarded the lows and our balcony. Luckily, blankets are moveable and robes make good coats too!

Soon we settled into our comfy bed. Each had 4 pillows that were a mixture of down and foam and all squishy. And our covers included a down type comforter. I seriously wondered if I could sneak it all home when we left......

Will I steal the bedding?

Will we strike it rich?

Will we eat ourselves sick?

Stay tuned for Day 3!

 

[JustCor]

Following along!

 

[Disney_traveler]

Hey y'all! I'm trying to add some pictures to my posts. They are all on my phone and I'm writing this on my iPad that doesn't automatically sync pictures to. Then when they finally load, some of them have been saying the file is too large. . Hopefully my descriptions are entertaining enough.

 

[Disney_traveler]

Wild Horses-----with shoes???
Day 3: Seeing Ruidoso

I didn't set an actual alarm but I told my internal alarm I wanted to wake up to watch as sun began to shine on the mountains. We were facing west and the mountain and even the sunsets weren't that great, but I wanted to watch as it went from darkness to sun tailing down the mountain to the lake below. Even though I was sleeping gloriously buried in pillows and down comforters (so much so that my mom couldn't actually tell if I was in the bed or not) I woke up around 6am and crept outside to take some pictures. Let me rephrase that.....I, a person who is used to the coldest temperature this season being a high 30-something degrees, crept (in my thin tshirt and Capri yoga bottoms and no socks or shoes or jacket) out onto the balcony during the coldest part of a low 30 degree morning. There are now 2 things I hate about being barefoot on concrete: Texas summer and Ruidoso winter (hey it technically wasn't spring yet).

After hopping around in and out snapping pictures and slowly waking up, we decided to head downstairs for some breakfast. I had been reading menus since I planned this trip and deciding what I wanted to try. We went to the Broken Arrow Tap House for breakfast. It is a 24 hour bar/grill type place. I don't feel like I'm going into just a bar even though there is an extensive chalkboard of what they have on tap. There's also one of those claw arcade games and for $2 a try you can try to catch your own lobster and they will cook it. We settled on the menu instead. I had the Bananas Foster French Toast which is described as: battered brioche topped with bananas flambé and fresh whipped cream. It was huge! 3 whole pieces of toast---although it looked like regular white bread to me, not brioche. No matter what it was very tasty with that good burn sugar taste that creme brûlée gets. It didn't come with bacon or anything and technically it didn't need it, but I was glad mom shared some of her bacon. She ordered the Sweet Cream Pancakes that were served with Vermont maple syrup, cinnamon and whipped cream. I tasted a bite and didn't care for them. Too gooey for me and almost tasted as little like wheat pancakes.

We decided to spend some time driving around Ruidoso and try to remember the restaurant we ate at a couple summers ago. We didn't do any shopping but drove up and down the main areas. There are tons of antique, clothing and knick knack shops as week as cool little restaurants. It gets pretty crowded later in the morning and early afternoon and a lot of places close early in the evening. If you've never been, I highly recommend making a day of this and arriving around 9:30-10:00am and parking at one end, walking all the way down one side and the back up to end at your vehicle. If you plan to drive and park at each shop, you are going to have a hard time. There are some parallel spots on the main road, but there is public parking about 1-2 blocks off.

We then decided to drive up the mountain to the ski area: Ski Apache. We would not be skiing! We tried it once several years ago when I said that we didn't need lessons since we could ice skate, roller blade and roller skate. Surely it was the same.....it wasn't. As we started up the mountain there was a turn off and we saw a road sign proclaiming "WILD HORSES". Seeing wild horses/mustangs is on my bucket list. Every time we go west I keep my eyes peeled for: wild horses, elk, bighorn sheep, moose, desert tortoises, emperor scorpions and desert tarantulas.....I have never seen ANY of them. Anyways, we saw the sign as well as a couple cars pulled off with windows down and about 3 horses standing within arms reach. Mom asked if I wanted her to turn around but I said no, let's go up the mountain. If they were that tame, they would be there later. It was "only" 12 miles up to the ski area. I say only because it felt like days and at some points you are winding and switxhbacking over the edge of the mountain. For some reason, I get scared when we go up, but never coming back down. Once we made it to the top, we could tell it was the end of the season. The parking lots were jammed with cars and the snow was looking pretty thin. We snapped a couple pictures and then headed back down and stopped at the overlook. It was obvious there had been some wildfires in the past and there were s lot of areas where the dense evergreens were just charred overgrown toothpicks in the snow.

As we got back down the mountain, we took the turn for the wild horses, but they had left. There was a small snow melt stream and I wanted to see how cold it was so I walked over. I happened to glance down at the horse tracks and noticed something odd.....they obviously had horseshoes! Either the wild horse were not wild at all (and never were) or had been broken and tamed enough for shoeing. Can't mark that one of the bucket list then.....but we CAN go mark something off the "trip eats" list! On to the Lincoln County Grill!

SOme scenery pictures:

 

[Disney_traveler]

Day 3 continues.....

So our next thing on our list was a favorite meal at a favorite restaurant: Lincoln County Grill. It is a small place and you order at the counter. We get the plate that comes with a cheese enchiladas with red chile sauce, a chicken enchilada with green chile sauce, a fried green chile "strip", rice and beans. Mom always adds a bowl of the green chile stew. I add an extra little bowl of the red chile sauce for my fried chile "strip". I put that in quotations because when I first came here I though it would be a chile cut into halves or quarters.....well it is the WHOLE chile.....and everything is amazing. We ate until we were miserable and I wanted pj pants.

We drove around a bit more and I spotted a Buffetts candy sign. I had seen this candy on a Food Network/Travel Channel type show and had never tried it. It's like a caramel log rolled in piñon nuts. So we pulled in and it's a rather small shop with candy canes outside. Looked all through and I only saw the nut log things in an assorted chocolate box. I asked the guy in charge and he said they were all out, but come back Thursday......yeah no.....if the company is famous foR THAT candy, then you should have it in stock.....always.
We headed back to our "base of operations" and enjoyed sitting in front of the large glass windows overlooking the lake. Several people were fishing, in canoes, in paddle boats or riding the zip line. All are things you can do through the resort for an extra fee. They also have golf (closed for season), horseback riding (closed for season), guided hunts (not for us), and ski packages with shuttle (not for us). We lounged for a bit and then visited the casino for a long while.

I haven't mentioned this before, but at Inn of the Mountain Gods, alcohol isn't allowed on the casino floor. They do have the Broken Arrow Tap House restaurant with a variety of alcohol, Big a Game Sports Bar that is right off the casino floor, and a little fenced off thing where you can buy and consume shots right there. Being that my sinuses were still adjusting and I was having occasional headaches, I stuck with self serve soda. They also have tea and coffee.

Now when we gamble we have a limit of $100 each per day. It felt like I had lost way more than that, but every evening I would check and we were close to even. When I would hit a losing streak I'd go sit in the lobby and enjoy the outdoor scenery or.....it would be time to eat.

For a late (and lighter) dinner we went back to the Broken Arrow as I had been eyeing 2 things: the artisanal cheese plate and the Reuben fries. While there I looked through the cocktail menu and saw they had a smore cocktail with whipped cream vodka, graham cracker rim, toasted markshmall garnish, etc etc. I ordered that only to be told they were out! Booooo well no money spent on alcohol then! The food again was delicious but yet again service wasn't good. It's like they forget you're even there and food takes forever. I understand to many reading this you may say that's the point of a casino to keep up you captive, but I've been to MANY casinos and poor service is a rarity.....especially repeated. Anyways, the food was wonderful and we couldn't finish it so we boxed it up and took it to our room for later. Once again we enjoyed the stars and then settled into those oh so heavenly beds.

 

[Disney_traveler]

Random addendum: My Slots

For anyone interested in my go to games....

Zombie Outbreak---I know exactly where it is in Ruidoso and Louisiana. Usually play minimum of $0.50 a spin. Has a cool bonus game where they release waves of zombies one at a time (11 waves total) and you have boxes to pick from and it is different weapons that destroy different amounts of zombies and release money wins. If you destroy all zombies you get an extra amount of money

The Big Bang Theory---obviously themed around the show. Instead of being 1 full screen, you can play up to 4 games at once ($0.25 per game). I don't like that bonus icons don't carry over/total up from all 4 screens. You have to get 3 Bazinga icons in one screen for the bonus. I swear the first time I played a multi screen (the hangover in Mississippi) it did carry over.

Some Aladdin/genie game---don't know the name. This is the first time I played. For each reel there is the word "wild" above it. Everytime you get a genie lamp in that reel, it adds one of the letters spelling out the word. Once you get the last letter, it makes that reel wild for 4 spins. I would cruise around and check when the game was unoccupied how many were filled. If a lot were, I would play until I reaped the benefits of the work of others. One time it hit a lot of wild reels at once and I won $200 betting the minimum of $0.60

I do play other games but usually look for ones with all the "bells and whistles" of free spin bonuses, random wilds, random bonuses.