Is it already past time for another blog? Silly me, how quickly times flies when you're vacationing... or under the weather.

This past weekend, Ida and I went through with our plans to go to Ruidoso, to get away from all the work and concentrate on relaxation. Ida got off early from her job, and we headed off, with me doing all of the driving. It wasn't Ida's fault, though; I was feeling so good, I just kept turning down her offers to drive. We got to Ruidoso relatively early and got checked into the Lodge At Sierra Blanca, a wonderful hotel that gives discounts when Ida uses her ID badge. I love stuff like that. A picture of the type of hotel room we had is shown above (I snatched it from the hotel's website). It was very similar to that, only reversed. What you can't see in the picture is the large jacuzzi in the bathroom. That was a nice touch as well.

After getting checked in, Ida and I hit the town and got some food, going to an Italian restaurant there. Let me just say that, while I'm a big fan of Ruidoso, they just don't seem to know how to do proper Italian food. Oh well. We enjoyed ourselves anyway, especially relaxing back in the hotel room.

It was around this point that we found out about the wildfires burning north of Ruidoso. They apparently were very serious, as the television announcers were talking about the four separate fires burning and jumping over the Rio Grande. Luckily, they were far enough away to not trouble us, but we kept an eye on them just the same. We also watched weather hitting everywhere else, including the tornados touching down in Texas and Arkansas and the duststorms hitting Lubbock. Busy weather everywhere.

On Saturday, Ida came up with an aggressive strategy, as we sat out to do, well, everything. We started out by eating our Complimentary breakfest, which had eggs, sausage, pancakes, hashbrowns, etc etc. Much better than just cereal. We followed this by getting on the road and walking around the opening shops in downtown Ruidoso, visiting some of our favorite locations, including the doggy treat store. Yep, there's a doggy bakery there worth checking out. At least, Brownie seems to like what comes out of there. Next, Ida & I went on a hike nearby the Lincoln National Forest, although we didn't go for the all-day walk. It was more fun just to explore for a while.

Next came a trip down to the Valley of Fire, a location that Ida & I had only slightly seen when we last visited the area with Kevin & Mel. It's a pretty cool site to walk around, looking at all the lava flows of the past. Hopefully, I'll get some pictures out to show you what it looks like. After a few more hikes throughout the little park, we headed back to Ruidoso, where we were thinking about trying out another Italian restaurant.

Unfortunately, we ran into that fun Ruidoso attitude, as the guy inside said that, since all the tables were currently full, we would have to wait outside and someone would eventually come and get us. We just opted to leave, as they clearly didn't want our service. Instead, we made some quick reservations (remarkably getting in at the last minute) for the Texas Club, a restaurant very close to the Lodge. Fine dining and attentive service. We also found out how lucky we were about the reservations, as a family showed up when we did (5:00 pm) and tried to call from there, only to find out reservations were booked until 8:30pm. I recommend the Chicken Fried Steak, as it was the biggest one I think I've ever seen.

The night ended with a quick trip over to the Inn of the Mountain Gods for a little gambling. Unfortunately, Ida's luck wasn't quite as good this time, and my luck was about the same as always when it comes to slots. We only spent a few bucks (rather quickly, in my case), then headed back to the hotel. About this time, I really wasn't feeling that great, but I wanted to keep enjoying the vacation. However, when we woke up Sunday morning, I was getting worse, with a stuffed nose, a sore throat, and itchy, watery eyes, that even a trip to get medication didn't help. Ida ended up driving a lot on Sunday as we headed out to the Eagle Ranch (near Alamagordo) to get some of their great pistachios, then headed home. I did slip in a little driving to help Ida rest at one point, but she mostly had to take the hit for me.

Since then, it's been recuperation time for me. I had to pop out my contacts and rest my eyes for the last few days, as my body recovered from whatever I had done to it. Ida pushed me to go to the doctor, but when she finally had me going over there, I realized that I was feeling a lot better, so we opted not to pay for any medical physician to simply give me a general antibiotic. Since then, I've been feeling a lot better. I had to throw out my old contacts (which annoyed me, since I had just put them in a week or so before), but all-in-all, I'm doing better.

I was helped by the fact that my co-worker took the Monday night shift I was supposed to take, giving me one more night to recover. Tonight, I'm in for him, as a preventive measure for the fact that he'll be working for me Saturday night/Sunday morning. It's going to be the big Time Change weekend, and someone up the line thinks that this is a wonderful time to install some new versions of software as well, so it's going to be an awful night. Since Jesse has the most experience of the night guys with these things (and since Monte, my boss, is badly sick himself right now), he's willing to take on the responsibility. Although I think I could handle it, who am I to turn down a night free from stress?

I hope everyone else had both as good a weekend as we did and a better weekend, health-wise, than I did. Have fun, and remember, if you get a chance, consider the Lodge when you go to Ruidoso! (ad paid for by the Lodge at Sierra Blanca)

Peace
Andy "Ace/Speed" Rasa

"One of the most sublime experiences we can ever have is to wake up feeling healthy after we have been sick." - Harold Kushner