Better get a move on if you want to experience a special part of New Mexico before everybody else discovers it. Even though the more famous Taos, Santa Fe and Albuquerque are fine vacation spots, Ruidoso in the southern part of the state is special, too.



Look any direction you like and there’s Sierra Blanca with its snowy peak reaching 12,003 feet! Tiny Ruidoso, population 8,000, claims this towering mountain as its own, sort of a benevolent grandparent keeping a kindly eye on you. The trip to its base at 9,000 feet is spectacular, on a twisty-turny road offering big new views around every hairpin curve.



Any walk around the village offers you a clear look at the snow-capped peak and the ski slopes every day. That’s a definite treat for those of us living where the lands are flat.



I was there in May so no-one was skiing, but families and friends were happily hiking the trails of the one million acre Lincoln National Forest, mountain biking, horseback riding, golfing or fishing for rainbow trout in local streams and lakes.



Never heard of Ruidoso? Me either, but seems like we could have because the birth and burial place of Smokey Bear is right next door in the town of Capitan. Fighting forest fires matters a lot to people in this part of the world.



The population swells to 35,000 in the summer, an indicator of lots of fun things to do.



Instead of hiking, I rode a stagecoach. A real one. After all, this is Billy the Kid country. A good way to see this land is to make a loop along the 84-mile national scenic byway named for the legendary outlaw whose daring escape from jail here in 1878 led to great speculation as to what happened to him next — killed at nearby Fort Stanton or moved to England.



Billy the Kid’s horse probably ran faster than the team of four pulling my stagecoach, but I bet we bounced just as much as those passengers 150 years ago hitching a ride with the mail.



A hefty $5 was the price to send a letter, and the driver was paid only if he got the mail from St. Louis to San Francisco in 23 days. The drill included changing horses every 20 miles and traveling 120 miles each day.



My ride on this replica wooden Western stagecoach was only five miles and we kept the same horses but changed seats — inside the coach, on the top and then right behind owner/driver Ed Heiman and 16-year-old home-schooled son Cole, with your knees pressing in his back and holding on tight to keep from pitching off.



Your teeth rattle anywhere you sit, but this perch offers fabulous views of Sierra Blanca and the sweeping vistas of the 10,000-foot Capitan Mountain range. You know you are on a spur of the original old Santa Fe Trail. No manufactured amusement park pretending here — this Lincoln County Overland Stage Company ride is what national tourism research shows travelers want: the authentic experience. Calmer amusements are also possible when you follow the Billy the Kid national scenic highway and make Ruidoso (Roo Eee Do So) your home base.



Like shopping? Shops lining both sides of downtown in this village carry interesting original art, western-motif furnishings, funky and traditional clothing, wonderful jewelry, good eateries — everything you want for a fun day of browsing, but maybe even more significant, Ruidoso’s shopkeepers are so pleasant.



Every single clerk or owner seemed like a happy person, glad to work and live in this place. Do you suppose that’s true all through the Rockies, or unique to this southern-most part of the mountains? Pleasant people are definitely a Ruidoso distinctive.



The Hubbard Museum of the American West is here and wandering among the Conestoga wagons, family buggies, Wells Fargo mail wagons and stagecoaches, you sense the strength and skills of American pioneers.



Saddles of all kinds and sizes are displayed at the Hubbard, including a Pony Express rig, as are cowboy guns, hats, boots, chaps and spurs. Beautiful native American garments with extraordinary beadwork dominate exhibits of important Indian artifacts.



Horses mattered to frontier families and they still do today in this place. Check out the museum’s Race Horse Hall of Fame and then head to the track yourself.



Ruidoso Downs Race Track is home to the world’s richest quarter horse race, the $1 million All American Futurity. Look for live racing from Memorial Day through Labor Day.



Standing still horses are special here, too. Absorb the strength of an appaloosa, thoroughbred, paint, quarterhorse, arab, morgan and standardbred when you stand in the midst of “Free Spirits at Noisy Water,” seven larger-than-life bronze sculptures on a gentle slope outside the Hubbard Museum.



Elegant is also available in Ruidoso, at the Inn of the Mountain Gods and at the Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts.



Both are stunning counterpoints to nearby Lincoln, the town where Billy the Kid earned his gun-slinging reputation in 1878. Thanks to preservation efforts by the Hubbard Museum and the Smithsonian Institution, you can walk the streets of this frontier town (population 40) and wander in the buildings, all very much as they were in the late 1800s.



Ghost town? Not really, more of a whole town museum.



Walking around the Inn of the Mountain Gods is different. This stunning hotel, resort, conference center and gaming space has history too, set in the grounds of the Mescalero Apaches and developed in conjunction with the tribal government and people who live here. While you can’t just wander all the grounds because they are private communities, you can steep yourself in Mescalero art and beliefs throughout this brand-new facility, just opened in March of 2005.



Start with the gigantic Crown Dancer Statues in front and take the time to learn their story: they represent four masked dancers and a clown who long ago used song and dance to help two young Apache men — one blind, one crippled — to heal and rejoin their people who had fled under attack.



Prints for each of the 273 guest rooms were made from original works by eight Mescalero Apache artists, sculpture, beadwork, jewelry, woodcarving, painting, drawing and leatherwork by native artists are available in the fine art gallery near the casino and exhibits of original art with signage explaining native traditions is found throughout the Inn of the Mountain Gods.



Don’t expect the pueblo look dominant in Santa Fe; the heritage of the people for whom this 463,000 acre reservation has always been home is distinctive in entirely different ways — and that’s why it’s a good thing to travel around New Mexico.



The second largest ski resort in New Mexico is also located on these grounds: Ski Apache, on Sierra Blanca Mountain, with 55 runs and 11 lifts, and a four-passenger gondola. Big game hunting can be arranged too.



Just as Sierra Blanca’s snowy peak dominates the Ruidoso landscape, so the white mica-flecked limestone of the Spencer Theater grabs the sight lines in the mesa for miles and miles.



This $23 million performance center in surprising southern New Mexico opened in 1997, winning national architectural and theater technology awards, presenting world-class shows ever since and gathering an impressive collection of Dale Chihuly glass chandeliers and other sculptures.



You might have seen one of Chihuly’s works at the Colquitt County Arts Center in Moultrie, or a massive installation last year in Atlanta at the Botanical Gardens. This collection is worth the trip to New Mexico.



I need to return because I didn’t have time to check out the International UFO Museum at nearby Roswell, at the site where aliens reportedly crashed in 1947, go sledding on the remarkable (some say weird) 275 square miles of gypsum sand at White Sands National Monument or look at the famous 27 radio telescopes known as the Very Large Array in the plains of San Augustin.



For More Information



Ruidoso Visitors Center



www.ruidoso.net



info@ruidoso.net



800-253-2255



Billy the Kid National Scenic Byway



www.billybyway.com



billy@billybyway.com



877-784-3676



New Mexico Dept. of Tourism



www.newmexico.org



800-733-6396