Mountain Gods and More Work

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Today was a day planned for working. I had a deadline to meet and few projects for some customers, so I worked nearly all day and evening.

Tony went to the Inn of the Mountain Gods Casino, to try his hand. Unfortunately the Mountain Gods were not generous. They never seem to be, but he had fun for a while.

I struggled with a printer's website for a number of hours, trying to upload completed files. I finally gave up and sent an email stating the errors I was getting.

We are leftovers for lunch and dinner... Although it was definitely not a vacation day for me, it was still nice to look out at pine trees and rolling hills of the Ruidoso Valley.

Skiing Elk Ridge

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Today we got up and loaded up for the trek to Ski Apache. There was a light frost on the trees as we got closer to the resort, and every so often, it looked as if it was snowing, as the frosties would fall off the trees.

Frosty aspen trees

Arriving at the resort

We arrived about the same time as Monday, 10:30ish. We decided to try some of the runs on the western side of the resort, one of them, Elk Ridge Run! This morning it was 22 degrees when we got the resort, much colder than previous days, so we wore our black neck-gator/hoods under our helmets. These really help with the wind and help keep body heat in.

We had a rough start, as the snow was quite icy at first. I fell and Tony fell on our first few runs. Nothing major, it was caused by a combination of icy runs, cold temps, and slightly sore legs. ;)

Unfortunately, there was no sign labeling Elk Ridge Run, but we did ski it a few times.

Elk Ridge Run

There is an "Elk Lodge" at this western-side base area, but since very few people are skiing this area, it looked pretty empty/lonely. This area was also heavily damaged by fire, so it is very unappealing visually... Maybe that is why no one is skiing here.

Colder today!

Tony at the Elk Lodge, surrounded by burned trees.

Us riding a lift

Tony is the small spec in the center  near the bottom of the run. This was Wild Onion, a black run.

About noon, we stopped for lunch and headed to the truck for our picnic. We enjoyed sitting on the tailgate and eating, like we did Monday, but it was a little chillier. We headed back to the slopes and skied another few hours before heading back home. We skied 10.2 miles, and a max speed of 30mph! I must have zipped one time! One of the neat things is visiting with folks while riding the lifts. Luckily, Ski Apache has not been crowded, but we have visited with a few other Texans while riding the gondola. Gee, hard not to, when 4/5 of the plates on the vehicles in the lot are from Texas!

Once we got home, we collapsed and chilled until dinner, the wonderful Spaghetti Tony made yesterday. I responded to a few work emails, and we relaxed and watched our shows. I had planned to go to bed early, till I remembered the blog was WAYYY behind. So hopefully, this catches us up.

Tomorrow is a scheduled work day for me, so we'll see what it brings.

Food, food, good food.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Today I had many ongoing projects to take care of for my customers, so we decided to stay put and I worked most of the day.

We were awakened around 5 with winds howling, and they were shaking the rig a little. About 10am, they calmed to more reasonable winds, but I understand that they shut down a few lifts at the resort due to the wind.

Tony decided to cook a bunch of things we brought so we would have food ready instead of having to cook after skiing. He put on a pot roast in the crock pot, cooked spaghetti, and browned some italian sausage for pizza fixin's. We decided to eat the homemade pizza for lunch. Made with a low-carb tortilla for the crust, these "personal-sized" pizzas are great! Mine has sausage, canadian bacon, and mushrooms.

Homemade low-carb pizza

Kitties chillin' on the desk beside me as I work.

In the afternoon, I had a break, so we headed over to the Office here at Circle B. They have a nice Rv parts store, so we decided to look around. We didn't see anything we couldn't live without, so we came home.

I worked some more, then we decided to go out for dinner to our favorite New Mexican food place, Casa Blanca. We had a great meal. Tony had fajitas and I had green chile chicken enchiladas. YUM!

After dinner, we headed home, chilled and watched some more shows. I did some more work in the evening. Tomorrow, we plan to ski again!

Fire and ice

Monday, March 10, 2014

Today we loaded up our gear and headed to Ski Apache Ski Resort. The road to the ski resort is a 12 mile, switch-backed treacherous mountain road with no shoulders to speak-of. It can take 30-45 minutes to get to the resort. We've driven it many times, so it's no longer scary to us. ;)

Along the way, we saw much evidence of the lightning-started wildfire from June 4-20, 2012. Around 250 homes and 44,300 acres were burned in the Little Bear Fire in the Lincoln National Forest. The cost of fighting the fire and dealing with the effects of the aftermath is estimated at a quarter billion dollars. Here are some pics from the fire-fighting at the resort.

Getting started up "Ski Run Road"

Climbing up the mountain, the views are great for the passenger!

We made it to the resort! Wow, look at all the burned trees.

Two new lifts were built soon after the fire, including a high-speed gondola to replace the original, and the resort opened that next winter.

We had a great first day. Most of the runs were open, and we got to ski terrain that hasn't been open to us before... usually because they don't have this good amount of snow this time of year. We even skied "the bowl", and rode the lift to the highest point of the resort at 12,500 feet. The view was amazing! At lunchtime, we walked back to the truck and ate the lunch we brought, then headed back to the slopes. We skied 8.8 miles and a max speed of 28mph.

Riding the gondola up!

View looking back to the base.

View looking up the mountain.

Tony at the top of the lift, 12,500 feet.

View looking southwest, we thought that lighter area in the distance might be White Sands National Monument.

Feels like you're on top of the world!

Me and the view of the base area. The red truck just to the left of my smile is ours.

Looking up to Apache Bowl Chair #6. We skiied down from there!

After we got home, we took it easy and had leftover steak for dinner. We watched some shows and I worked for a while. Tomorrow, more work is planned.

Getting our "mountain legs"

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Today, we decided to just take it easy and get used to the altitude, catch up on sleep and relax a bit after the long drive yesterday.

Frosty truck! View out the rear window.

Our site at the Circle B.

Another view of our site at the Circle B.

We lounged around a bit in the morning, then headed out for lunch to explore and run errands.

We drove through town see what looked new and what had not changed. Many of the older buildings looked like they had been spruced up with paint or new facades. Some things were gone, but other things were new. Things looked like the economy is picking up for Ruidoso.

Look! Snow on the Sierra Blanca Mountains!

After running from one end of town to the other, we headed back and stopped at Starbucks. We have a number of gift cards and we don't drink coffee, so Tony suggested we get some breakfast pastries, instead. So he went in and picked out a few.

We then went to eat at our favorite BBQ place, Circle J BBQ. Unfortunately the BBQ was not as good as it has been in the past.... But the apple cobbler was very good!

After lunch we headed to WalMart to get a few things, like meat and bread, and sunscreen which I forgot. The WalMart here is smaller than ours, but they had all we needed. Tony got some good looking steaks to grill!

We headed home, and I decided a nap was in order, since I didn't sleep well the first night we were here.

After that, I did some Hairball Creative work, while Tony set up the grill to cook the steaks. We had a great meal, then went for a walk around the park.

The evening was spent working and watching some of the great shows we like on History channel, like Counting Cars and American Restoration.

Walking around the park.

Tomorrow, we ski!

Springing for a Break!

Saturday, March 8th, 2014

Due to a wild turn of events we didn't know if we'd get to go on a trip or not this Spring Break. Tony had obligations and so did I, but the stars aligned and we were able to go, after all. After careful evaluation of time and money, we decided a trip to Ruidoso was doable. We knew we could get there in one day, and even if he snow wasn't great there was lots to do. They also had a good dump of 10 inches just a few days before we were to be there!

We brought Mammoth home on Tuesday and got her backed in, loaded and ready to go. We de-winterized her, so we wouldn't have to mess with it when we got to the park. She needed a bath badly, but we just didn't have time and knew we'd be driving in some rain on the way.

Ready to hit the road tomorrow!

We loaded up kitties and headed out about 7:45am Saturday. The kitties had their treats, and promptly went to snoozing. We made good time across the state, with only a hazy mist and light sprinkles part of the day. We stopped at a rest stop and had lunch near Abilene. With the big fuel tank filled up ($3.56 a gallon) before we left, we had no issues filling up as we went, avoiding the ever-rising prices.

On the road again!

First glimpse of mountains off in the distance, about 20 miles east of Roswell, looking west.

Roadside pullout before heading into the Hondo Valley.

We were concerned that the gps was putting us into Ruidoso about 6:15, which was later than we needed to be there... The office closes at 6. But as we got closer, the time adjusted. We opted not to stop for dinner, and arrived in Ruidoso Downs at The Circle B RV Park at 5:45. The kitties did great! They never fussed the whole trip, and we never took them out of the truck. They slept most of the time.

We'll be running off tank most of the time as nighttime temps are getting below freezing. Not a problem for us! Tony filled the tank once we got here. We got set up and had dinner, then collapsed for the evening. It was a long drive, but Tony said it was not a hard one. Traffic was light, and there was a slight headwind, but overall the drive wasn't too bad. We crossed into the Mountain time zone, but tonight we "Spring Forward", so it's a wash for us, for now!

We are so happy to be back in the mountains.

The final leg to HOME.

Saturday, January 4th, 2014

This morning, the kitties were brave enough to explore a little before breakfast. We enjoyed some more visiting with our family, and then about 10:30AM we hit the road. We thought about getting the Mammoth washed at the Blue Beacon, but the waiting line was 4 or more trucks deep, and we didn't want to wait.

Somewhere, we knew we had to make a stop to dump our tanks... we decided to leave Durango with them partially full, since it would slow us down from getting out of town quickly. (We knew the trip home would be mostly above freezing, so no worries there.) Unfortunately, we had a difficult time finding a dump station! I used an app to locate rest areas with dump stations or fuel stations that had those facilities. We stopped at least 2 places along the way that ended up not having a dump station, which slowed our progress a little.

We finally found a rest stop near Iowa Park that had a dump station! It didn't take too long to dump, but it was windy, and the wind chill was cutting -- especially when we weren't really dressed for it.

The big tank fuel pump was still going a little slow yesterday and today, but the last two fill-ups, when the temp was above 50, the pump seemed to run just fine!! We'll have to do a little more investigating to find out what was giving us problems. We were never in danger of running out of fuel. We just ran it for about 20 minutes each time we got to a quarter tank in the truck, and would get from 1/4 to 3/4 filled.

We ended up getting home about 7PM. It was 62 degrees and pleasant! So we unloaded a lot of the trailer, but not all. We decided to just relax for the evening. The kitties, whom had slept all day, began to run around and play.

All-in-all, a VERY good trip. We're tired, but grateful to have had great weather and no major incidents.

Sunday, January 5th, 2014

Technically not the trip anymore, but figured I'd follow up with the final tidbits...

We woke up this morning to a stiff 20mph north wind, and temps in the 30's! We got the trailer backed into the driveway, and worked to get it re-winterized. The wind chill made it feel about 22! We'll get it completely unloaded over the week, hopefully when it's warmer!! Tonight should be in the teens. Wow, just like Durango!