“Hey, that guy at the next window just bet on #1 to win.” “That sounds like a really good bet. Number 1 just won the last race. And that was my next pick. I am going to put 5 on him right now.” Pretty experienced I was, just having finished the instructions on how to read the Ruidoso Downs Race Program.
Although an obviously sophisticated betting strategy, if not interesting, I should back up and start this story over.
I have made many trips to New Mexico, an adopted homeland for my family and where I spent my collegiate years. Most of the trips in the last 10 years or so have been to a sleepy little artsy town nestled high in the Sacramento Mountains about 2 hours north of El Paso, Texas. I have written about Cloudcroft before. Literally in the clouds, Cloudcroft is named after an English description of a clearing covered in clouds. It is where my parents retired and were buried; in a beautiful mountain meadow in the James Canyon Cemetery, just behind the old “Cowboy Church.”
It is also adjacent to the noted Mescalero Reservation whose tribal members are direct descendants of some of the most famous of Native Americans (namely, Cochise and Geronimo).
This visit however, was to visit my brother and his wife who were also retiring in those mountains and had begun building their home. This, after cruising the Caribbean for about 5 years.
After running errands in preparation for a foundation, concrete pour, and ordering trusses and lumber package, we decided on our last day that we would take off and drive about an hour and half up to the resort town of Ruidoso, also known as the quarter horse racing capital of the country.
Our trip required us to head down the mountain to the desert floor of the Tularosa Basin. Our plan was to hike the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site trail near Tularosa. The trail is not long, just a little over a mile round trip, but boasts over 20,000 petroglyphs. As much as we were looking forward to this hike, the temperature on the desert floor topped out at over 100 degrees and we decided that it would be too smart for two mature gentlemen to get out in that kind of heat. “Beer and a burger” at Ruidoso it was, then. It was a great drive and a great time for the only two male siblings in our family to do some catching up.
Now when we are together and begin talking about serious stuff, the conversations usually begin something like, ”Here’s the thing about that….” It was as if all clarity about the particular subject matter would be achieved and all myths and untruths would be dispelled. Today’s topic was tiny houses and the Tularosa Basin. Today those topics overlapped, with many very tiny houses, most occupied and some deserted, scattered out into the desert. The Basin itself has its own history, which would eventually come to be significant to the US as a whole.
Stretching over 150 miles, north to south, it started out life as an ocean. Over time, as the scars on the mountain slopes reveal, the ocean dried up and formed what is now the stretch of gypsum sand known as the White Sands National Monument. It is also home to the White Sands Missile Range Nuclear Test site and site of the world’s first atomic bomb detonation. We also know it as the Trinity Site.
Covering the requisite mileage on the desert floor, we left the heat of the desert for the cooler (about 15 degrees) mountain retreat of Ruidoso.
It was a learning experience and a lesson in how to read a racing program. What’s the bet? How do you place a bet? How do you pick a winner? Your guess is as good as mine. But, it was a good day to spend with a brother.
Two days after I arrived back home my brother texted me this headline from a local newspaper.
“Authorities say a visitor has died on a hiking trail at White Sands …” Temps were 99 degrees plus.—Glad we picked the beer and burger.
I'm glad you chose the beer and burger, too! Sounds like you had a great time, though. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI love to watch horse races. One of my sisters bets solely on the look of the horse's legs.
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