The kids and I packed up on a crisp Monday morning and headed to Roswell to visit Grandma. It was a nice little drive, the kids were chilled, we listened to music and played "I Spy with My Little Eye" which in the plains of NM is pretty boring since all you really see are cars, the road, signs, grass and fences! However, we did luck out and see the wild turkeys outside of Riverside. We LOVE the turkeys! We also saw a few vultures, some ravens and a red-tailed hawk, no antelope though. :( We plotted out where all of the roadside fruit stands were so we could stop and get cherry cider on the way back to Ruidoso.
We spent most of the morning visiting with Grandma which was so nice since we hadn't seen her since last year. She looked great and was in good spirits.
She just misses Bob and hopes he can come home soon. We all got hungry and decided to head over to the good 'ol Pizza Hut for the lunch buffet. Afterwards I took her to the bank and to run a couple of errands. She was so happy to have the help, and I was happy to do it! When we got back to her place, I informed her that I had made a HUGE batch of fried okra and black-eyed peas from my garden the night before and I had brought her the leftovers for her to have for dinner. You just can't imagine how happy she was for that! Such a simple gesture that obviously meant so much. It felt nice to share something from my garden with her as I remember all the times as a kid that she cooked farm-fresh food for me!It started to get a little late and I could tell she was getting tired so it was time to head home. We gave hugs and kisses and I reminded her where to find the peas and okra and we got on the road. It was an uneventful drive home, at least to begin with. Somewhere in between Riverside and Picacho a grey fox ran out in front of me with a fresh kill in it's mouth! Luckily there was no one behind me because I had to throw on the brakes to keep from hitting it. Can you imagine the hysteria in my car if we had actually hit that thing? Once it got to the other side of the road, it turned around and gave us a quick glance and proceeded into the brush. Beautiful animal! So glad I didn't mash it flat!
From that point on the trip got a little strange. We kept running through little rogue thunderstorms where we would get pommeled with rain for 30 seconds then have sunny skies and then 2 minutes of downpour, then more sunshine and at one point it was pouring AND the sun was shining. It was freaky. We finally decided to pull over at fruit stand to get cider. The kids and I went in, found our cider and spent the next 5 minutes searching around the store trying to find someone to pay. We called out, we walked around, but no one was there! I could have walked right out with my cider. But of course, I'm not a thief, so we put it back and walked out. We headed back up the road to the first fruit stand we saw.
I told the guy about my strange experience at the other stand and he laughed and said that he was more than happy to take my money! So we finally got the damn cider
and I spent the next week with kids sporting bright red "Joker" lips!
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