After four wasted hours we were on our way in a rented SUV, leaving our car in San Antonio to be worked on. We purchased a used iPad for the kids and it was a big help in getting us through the long drive.
We arrived at our first destination, a cabin in Ruidoso, around bedtime.
A view of the RV park from our cabin:
Deer were walking around the streets and eating.
We got up Tuesday morning and went out to breakfast. When we came out of the restaurant it was snowing.
The restaurant was also a bakery and they bring out bread dough for the kids to play with.
After breakfast we bought a $5 sled and some rope, found some hills and went sledding. I received free snow gear from someone getting rid of it a few weeks before the trip.
The next day we left Ruidoso and headed for Las Cruces. After checking in to our hotel we took the kids to a park.
We then all got cleaned up and ready for a wedding...the whole reason behind our trip to NM.
Just married!
The next day, before we headed home we went to White Sands and had more sledding fun.
Neal pulling ZJ.
Mid-day we were on our way back to TX. As evening approached we drove straight into a TX winter storm. The roads were icy and littered with overturned 18 wheelers. We were crawling along and realized we weren't going to make it to our reserved hotel room.
We called all the hotel rooms in the area and there were no rooms available anywhere. We had to sleep in our vehicle in a hotel parking lot. The kids slept at least. It was freezing and horribly uncomfortable.
The next morning we helped ourselves to the complimentary hotel breakfast, called around to check on the roads and headed out. We knew we'd have some miles of ice but it would improve after a bit so we just crept along for a while.
We got back to San Antonio that afternoon and luckily our car was just about ready. We made it home around 7 that night.
12/29/14-1/2/15
