June 30, 2010

Annual Weekend with my Friends

If you remember, I was ready to go two weeks ago only to learn it was the wrong weekend. Oops.

We went to Ruidoso, New Mexico this year. It was wonderful. Cool, even chilly at times, little to no humidity, and did I say cool? I am ready to move there. I left here Wednesday morning, picked up a friend about an hour away and we drove another five hours to our hometown where we both spent the night with our respective parents. The next morning, I picked up both her and another friend who lives there, and we hit the road for New Mexico. We met another friend about two hours away, shifted around so there were two of us in each car, and continued on our way.

We wanted to eat lunch in Portales so we plugged a BBQ place into the GPS. It finally said we were arriving at our destination, and we saw a lot of cars in a parking lot so turned at the corner, only to find out that it was a hardware store. We looked around and didn't see anything, so we pulled up in front of a dilapidated old house so we could study the map. Our friends pulled up beside us and I rolled down the window to tell them what we were doing, but they didn't look over at me. We could see them gathering up their purses and the friend with me wondered if they thought we would really take them to eat at a dilapidated old house. I suggested we just wait and see where they went, and they got out of their car and stood there looking at the old house. We started laughing so hard that tears were rolling down my face, and finally they looked at us. By then, both of us were laughing so much that neither of us could speak. That was just the beginning of a long weekend of laughing and crying. Like when we were talking about names of students (several of us are/were teachers) that we'd rather not have to say, and one friend said "Dick" is always a touchy name. Without thinking (not that I ever do), I said that it wasn't a common name anymore and I had never had a Dick. Took awhile for those naughty girls to quit laughing, and yes, they were laughing at me!

There were six of us this year and we rented a house in the hills outside Ruidoso. When I say hills, I don't mean the gently sloping hills like we have here. These were fairly steep, rugged, and covered with trees. My GPS found the address and we drove up the sloping driveway, got out of the car, and craned our necks to look up at the house, and the steep wooden stairs going up to it. We counted. Forty-three steps and then another thirteen steps up to the bedrooms. With luggage. At an altitude of 7000 feet, we were all breathing heavily enough to make crank phone calls by the time we got to the front door.

This was our view from the house, and one of the few pictures I took. I was having so much fun I forgot to take pictures! (click to enlarge)


I thought we'd see a lot of wild animals, but other than this deer sitting outside our window, we didn't see much.



Other than the daily involuntary aerobic exercise, we enjoyed a little shopping, a lot of eating, and a day at the races. Ruidoso Downs was so much fun, although I think we were actually the only people who went there to have fun. One of my friends spent the night before studying racing forms and made her picks. She had to go home the next day and couldn't go to the races with us so she played through us. I think the others took their cues from her picks or picked the favorite listed on the program. My method was looking at the horses when they were led out and again when they were ridden to the gate. My favorites are grays, but I also like tall ones. I like the ones who look like they know what they are doing, not those ADD ones who are too busy watching what the other horses are doing. Hey, don't laugh. I picked five winners out of eight and my friend who studied for three hours picked six out of nine (we got there right before the second race so I didn't have time to look for a winner). Now if I had bet more than $2 each time, I might have won some big money, but as it was, I didn't break even. But what else can give an afternoon of fun for $5.80? One of my friends picked by the odds and didn't have a winner all afternoon. She finally decided one of her picks should have been named "Gotta Be Limping".

At first the people around us were soberly watching their tickets, groaning when they lost, and seriously discussing who they should pick in the next race. After listening to us for awhile, they began to join in the bantering, moved closer to us, and a couple of them even waited until I picked my "winner" and then they bet on it too. I guess they figured they'd have some fun even if it didn't win. When we won we all cheered, and when we lost we all renamed the loser with a more appropriate name like "Stuck in the Gate", "PMS Filly" etc.

If you haven't kept up with your high school or college buddies, I seriously suggest you get on Facebook, find them, and plan a weekend with them. It might turn into an annual weekend, or even an annual week. It is something my group of friends looks forward to every year. It is a break from the stresses of our lives and we renew our spirits as well as our friendships.

Until next time, may you have blessings and enduring friendships,
Marti