Crysti Couture

My other half and I are quickly approaching the year mark, which isn’t a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, but it’s still very nice to celebrate. Valentine’s Day also just passed and I’ve always been the type to prefer something memorable rather than something material when it comes to gifts.

So, we decided to take a trip up to Ruidoso for Valentine’s weekend! I had most of the trip planned out but we mainly just left off the spur off the moment!

The road from El Paso, TX to Ruidoso, NM is US-54 and that runs up from Northeast El Paso through Orogrande, NM, Alamogordo, Tularosa and Mescalero. There’s a really great little pistachio farm right between Alamogordo and Tularosa, so we took a little pit stop and bought a few bottles of their award winning Arena Blanca Winery ‘Rogue Red’ and sampled some of their flavored pistachios.

Once we made it into Ruidoso, I’m certain I had a face full of wonder and amazement. Sure, I had been to Ruidoso countless times before, but never for leisure. We were pretty famished at this point, so we stopped by ‘Cant Stop Smokin’, a really picturesque old style BBQ joint housed inside a magnificent looking cabin-style building. What captured me was the giant wall next to the restaurant bearing messages from passerby’s.

After we filled our bellies with some of the most delicious meat I’ve ever had (stahp!) we left on our long-ass journey to the summit of Ski Apache deep within the Alto Mountains. It felt as if the road just went on and on but damn it…so beautiful.

The beau is a much more experienced snowboarder than I could ever be, so while he was off enjoying the slopes, I took a beginners course and proceeded to fall on my arse a million times while laughing and getting hit on by the instructor. He eventually gave me his number; the beau saw this as a compliment.

Snowboarding is kind of a big deal for me. I tore my ACL getting off a lift when I was 14 and since then, it sort of ruined my ability to be as physical as I would like to be. I’ve had 2 ACL surgeries and I’m pretty much missing a meniscus, so getting on that lift was a little nerve-wracking.

When the day was done and we headed down to our cabin at High Country Lodge, we stopped off at a scenic point and took a ton of photos. General mushiness abounds:

It was a great and memorable trip! Can’t wait for our next big outing!