We didn't see the sun during our first full day in Ruidoso. A cold front brought clouds, cold temperatures, and occassional light rain to the area. The rain initially continued to fall that night, but the skies eventually cleared dropping temperatures into the high twenties the next morning. After I woke up, I looked out the window to see the golf course iced over and steam rising from the lake. The sun quickly warmed temperatures, and despite a half-hour frost delay I still got my round of golf in that day.

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I had my eye on Ruidoso ever since we moved to El Paso. I wanted to visit during the summer, while the horses were running at Ruidoso Downs and while it was still warm enough for some water activities. However, since we were paying a rent and a mortgage each month we had to wait until the house sold in Phoenix. With the sale complete, we booked our reservations at the Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort and Casino, hoped for warm of weather, and set off for a few days of rest, golf, and video poker.

The weather didn't completely cooperate, but it wasn't bad enough to keep me off the golf course. I layered up and braved the mid-forties on the first day. Despite a cold, light rain falling an hour before my tee time, I never received more than a brief drizzle while on the course. The good news was this kept traffic light on the course (the next two days the course was packed). I played in about three hours, which turned out to be a good thing since rain started falling again about an hour after I got off the course. I took a few pictures the first day, but none are noteworthy enough to show here.

On our second full day, we got our first glimpse of Sierra Blanca Peak, which rises to a height of over 12,000 feet high (about 5,000 feet higher than the resort). Snow levels had fallen to about 8,000 feet the day before, so the mountain was covered in its first snow of the year.

Probably about 50% of the photos I took featured Sierra Blanca Peak. This above photo is my favorite due to the combination of the white snow, the green pine forest, and the reds from the long grass around the lake (the morning sun really helped bring these colors out). The golf course is also iced over. Click here to view some more photos. The news reported that 8-10" fell on the mountain; I'm not so sure due to the rapid melting of the snow that you'll see in these additional photos. It was still cold enough to where I don't think 8-10" would have melted that quickly.

The course at Inn of the Mountain Gods was easily one of the most beautiful courses I've ever played...and one of the most difficult. Rated as one of the best in the state of New Mexico, this course features tight fairways; some are no more than 10-15 yards wide. The first key to a good round is leaving the ball below the hole; the greens are fast and most slope back to front. The second key to a good round is avoiding the trees and knowing where to place the ball for your shot into the green. Most holes are tightly lines by the towering pine trees, but even more difficult are the trees placed in the middle of the fairway. Driving the ball is difficult, especially on the third hole. Trees can also catch approach shots; not only do you have to get the ball in the fairway but you have to place the ball on the correct side to have a clear shot to the green.

Overall I was happy with the way I played. By the third day, I was striking the ball as well as I ever have; there were several iron shots that I'll remember for a long time, and I hit half of those narrow fairways (with a few other drives being only a few yards off of the fairway).

On our last night in Ruidoso, we dined at Wendell's in the resort. I highly recommend the Elk Tenderloin!

We stayed at Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort and Casino, and the resort hotel was absolutely gorgeous. Click here for some additional photos of the hotel.

Rates at the Inn of the Mountain Gods were very reasonable. I figure this is their offpeak time of year; people aren't running to the mountains to escape the heat anymore, and the ski season is still about a month away. Even better, three of the four nights were at the weekday rate, so we decided to get a suite for our trip. The suite was bigger than the two bedroom apartment we lived in when we first got married. It featured one and a half bathrooms, three TVs (one of these was a 13" LCD TV in the bathroom), two balconies, two refrigerators, two video phones which gave us up-to-date weather information, a Bose wave radio, and other great upgrades.