Ruidoso Downs

We went to the horse tracks and we bet for the first time on horses. The first bet I made I doubled my money! I won 5 dollars- yippie. It was neat to watch the horses go around. They are so fast and I thought it was strange they only went around once. I guess any of these horses could win. Brad and I could not understand the program or how the odds worked so any bets we made were guesses. I made friends with an old cowboy. He told me how to place a bet he just told me to pick the horse. This is a picture of the horse we bet on - Majestic Game - smoking the rest of the horses! After I won I turned around and he was trying to get my attention, when he did he lifted his arms to do fist pumps. We were in the cheap seats and he was in his box but we jumped up with our hands over our heads. It was only five dollars but it was fun to cheer a horse on. We placed one more bet (a losing one) but we managed to leave the tracks while we were still ahead. We walked downtown for a while, but we wanted to make it to three rivers petroglyps with enough time to cook dinner and set up camp in daylight. Once we arrived we sadly discovered that due to wildfires the petroglyph camp site was closed. We couldn't make it to white sands in time to get a permit so we settled on the sketchy Oliver Lee State Park where we got attacked by fire ants. So hopefully we don't get sun burnt or eaten by fire ants today. By the way - A fire ant sting (or bite whatever it is) is one of the most painful bites I have ever experienced. I would hate to get attacked by a bunch of them. The sting stayed most of the night feeling like the ant was still stinging me. Brad got a bite to but they didn't seem to jump up on him like they did on me. ! would just walk and there would be three on my shoe. Brad was standing in the hot spot for a while and I think they just crawled on him, except for one hungry little meanie ant. We are about to head out to white sands, which we got a glimpse of while driving yesterday. It looks pretty awesome.