As many of you know, we have taken some very cool extended summer vacations over the past decade or so -- South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Washington, Montana, Alberta, British Columbia. For the past three summers, however, such endeavors have not been possible. In 2012 we were moving and dealing with Hollis' health problems, and 2013 and 2014 have been significantly tighter than usual thanks to our continued ownership of the Nightmare on Firestone Street. (
Note: Click here to buy.) As such, we've transitioned from a month in the Rockies to a few days mooching off of relatives. Happily, we enjoy hanging out with ALL of our relatives. I understand that this is not necessarily a common occurrence ...
The current mooch-fest is taking place at Paige's mom and stepdad's place in the central New Mexico mountains (Ruidoso). Ruidoso sits at about 7,000 feet and is located in the middle of Lincoln National Forest. It's a tourist town with maybe 8,000 permanent residents. Peaks in the area range from 10,000 to just shy of 12,000 feet. There is skiing in the winter and a couple hundred miles of typically vacant hiking trails (the best kind). I don't have much that is clever to say about any of this ... just wanted to provide a few pictures from this year's treks for the sake of posterity.
On Wednesday, Hunter and I went on an 8-mile journey that included a trip to the summit of Lookout Mountain. At 11,580 feet, it's the second-highest peak in central New Mexico. The second picture below shows Hunter pointing to the summit when we were about halfway there.
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| Trail to Lookout Mountain |
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| Halfway to the Summit |
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| Looking North from the Summit |
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| Camera Timer? Check. |
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| Hail the Conqueror |
On Friday, Reagan and Hunter and I did a 6-mile loop in the Argentina Canyon area. The elevation gain wasn't as significant as on Wednesday's trip, but our lungs still got a good high country workout.
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| Hail the Flatlanders |
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| Hail the Dorks |
I suspect we'll head out again the day before we leave, but I'll go ahead and close here. We're stopping at Carlsbad Caverns on the way home. If anything super-interesting happens at that time, I'll just add the info after we get back to San Antonio.
Cheers,
Mike
