Preventing Fires, Driving Fast, and Getting Religion

This morning we headed to Capitan, NM to visit Smokey Bear Historical Park.  The concept of Smokey the Bear came alive during World War II to "prevent forest fires" and conserve wood for the war effort.  However, Smokey became a living symbol for the forest service when a little bear cub was found with burned paws after a 17,000 acre forest fire in 1950 on the Capitan Mountains near Capitan, New Mexico. After living in the National Zoo in Washington D.C. for 26 years, Smokey passed away and was returned to the Village of Capitan to be buried at what is now the Smokey Bear Historical Park.  the little park is very well done with a nice museum geared toward Smokey's story and forest fire prevention.  There is a nice nature walk which is filled with all of the different plants found in the forest and desert habitats in the mountains surrounding Ruidoso and Capitan.  They also have a nice playground and picnic area.

After the park visit, we drove back to Ruidoso and ate lunch at Tina's Cafe.  Tina's is a little whole in the wall cabin surrounded by a bunch of antique at kitsch shops. Luckily we had our GPS, otherwise we would have never found it (their sign is really dinky).  One of the Ruidoso guidebooks said that eating their green chile chicken tamale plate and their red chile pork tamale plate was a religious experience.  They were not kidding!  Sorry, I did not get a picture of the food.  Religion took over my brain cells.  But I did get a picture of the inside of the place.  Really cute and cozy.  We were seated next to the fire place which was nice on this chilly day!

After lunch, we headed to Pillows Funtrackers for so Go Kart action.  The boys had a blast!

We then spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing at home and drooling over the mountain.  We had dinner at a restaurant called Landlocked where I had salmon with red chile rub (yum) and Derek had tacos al carbon.  The kids enjoyed spaghetti.  The meal was good, but just paled in comparison to the holy tamales earlier in the day.  We did enjoy the western guitar trio entertainment, and my berry sangria was quite tasty!

By the way Mom and Dad, if you have not already tried it, Lucky Duck Shiraz from Australia is excellent!

Another brief update- second night in a row that a jet at White Sands Missile range near Alamogordo, NM just over the mountains to the west has gone supersonic.  The sonic boom from breaking the sound barrier makes the house shake!  CRAZY!!!!