Anniversary Moon

When you get married, you get to go on a honeymoon. And lately, when people are expecting, they like to go on a baby moon, the last hoorah trip before baby comes and takes over their lives. Each year, around our anniversary, my husband and I go on a trip. This year I decided to call this trip our anniversary moon.

Each year, we tend to travel north - Taos, Trinidad, Abiquiu, Jemez Mountains - these are all past destinations for our anniversary moon. This year, we decided to go south to the stomping grounds of my youth, Ruidoso and the surrounding Sacramento Mountains. I grew up in this area and I'm appalled at all the amazing, beautiful things I missed while living there. The Sacramento Mountains are full of beautiful landscapes and hidden springs. I can say the same thing for Ruidoso, although I feel like I had a chance to experience Ruidoso a lot more than the very mountains in my backyard.

I wanted to share some of the highlights from our trip, which was full of adventure and relaxing. If you ever visit this part of New Mexico, I highly recommend visiting these places and experiencing their beauty and fun for yourself. And then, you can use My Digital Studio to document your experience as well. :-)

Bluff Springs
Bluff Springs is nestled deep in the Sacramento Mountains, but easily accessible. There's a stretch of a few miles where you have to drive on dirt road to get to this area, but it's a nice dirt road and won't hurt your car. The entire area is a recreation area and people like to go out there to camp. We like to go and visit the little spring and admire the accompanying waterfall.  This time, my husband was determined to collect water from the spring to drink later (after boiling it of course). I enjoy walking along the little stream that the spring creates and watching the little waterfall as the stream falls over the bluff. You can walk right up to the waterfall.

I love using pictures in a the background for my MDS projects. 

Bonito Trail No. 36
As a kid, my family made many trips to the Bonito Lake area, but I never hiked along any of the trails. As we passed by Bonito Lake, I was surprised to see it pretty much shut down to the public. I felt like you can look, but you couldn't touch in any way. Turns out that the Little Bear fire in 2012 contaiminated the lake and the City of Alamogordo has shut it down. The city can't even use it for drinking water as it has for many years because of all the silt and debris form the fire. Needless to say, the lake still looks beautiful, and despite the burn scars that plague this area, the area is still beautiful.

Bonito Lake. Look, but don't touch.

Bonito Lake wasn't our goal. Bonito Trail No. 36 was our goal. And we made it there and hiked it and loved it! Here's a few highlights.

This sign is very important. It shows that we were on the right trail. We have a habit of getting lost on hikes. 

We found a cave. Husband thinks it may have been a mine or claim at one point.

Water! This was the best part of the hike. 

This post is already longer than I thought. I'll stop here and share the rest of the Anniversary Moon highlights another time. I may get a chance to continue documenting our trip in My Digital Studio. 

~Cita