Mountain Air Will Set You Free

After a week in the mountains of New Mexico, it’s good to be back home, I guess, but I would rather be back in Ruidoso’s cool, thin mountain air.

Mrs. MoMo and I have been, for years, regular visitors to the village of Ruidoso, New Mexico. If not for Texans, we believe the town would be a service station, a post office with one red light, and a herd of wild horses if Texans stopped coming. I’ve yet to meet a local that wasn’t a former resident of Texas.

We are used to seeing and swerving our car to avoid hitting, feeding, and gawking at the Deer, the ornery Elk, and the pesky herds of Wild Horses, and now we have seen the handy work of the local dumpster-diving Black Bears. These aren’t your usual Bears; they are “smarter than the average Bear.” The dumpsters have a bolted stop-gap, and the Einstien Bears have figured out how to open the lids. The big one wore a pork pie hat and a necktie; the little sidekick sported a bowtie and whined a lot. The lady next door captured them with her iPhone camera.

We awoke, carried our coffee mugs onto the front deck, and were greeted with a trail of white plastic trash bags torn and strewn half a block down the street. A kind lady in the house across the street helped us clean it up. I had thrown away an empty bottle of Irish Whiskey and found the top cork pulled out and slobbery evidence that a Bear had stuck his tongue in the bottle, trying to get the last drop of hooch. They also enjoyed the last bite of the Frito Bean Dip we tossed and some stale corn chips and chicken scraps. If I had known the critters were that hungry, I would have sat out a “Pic-a-Nic Basket” for them.

The big draw for Ruidoso is the quarter horse races at the Downs. I don’t bet anymore (I’m a cheap ass), but MoMo has it down to a science, and she wins money. If the horse is cute and frisky, and she likes his racing colors and the color of the jockey’s silks, and the horse takes a big poop while parading before the race, she slaps some cash down. She also considers the name of the pony, like; Blue Byou, Lewie Lewie We Gotta Go, Take The Money And Run, Trailer Park Queen, Beach Blanket Bingo, Mama’s Money Bag, and so on. Do the owners ask the horse if they like their name? Probably not. Imagine a stately racehorse with a ridiculous name.

Since the pot is now legal in New Mexico, we saw small groups of aged Hippies wandering the sidewalk in the Mid-Town shopping district. It seems the Woodstock generation has moved to New Mexico for the fresh mountain air breathed through a bong.