Ruidoso Road Trip

Last week, I told you that, for Mother's Day, my mom and I drove down to Ruidoso to see the Hubbard Museum of the American West. The museum was hosting a special traveling exhibit on Lechuguilla Cave. I posted the photos of that exhibit here. In this post, I will show some more photos of the museum.

But first, we had to drive for over three hours, past windmills, both old and new.

Ruidoso is the home of many Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse racing and breeding farms. Look at these magnificent metal gates!

This is an overview of the lower level of the museum. They had all kinds of horse transportation with placards describing eachof them.

This sidesaddle has a "slipper" stirrup and a horsehair girth, interesting.

 Some of the saddles were available for test rides. The McClellan cavalry saddle was not at all comfortable. This is the first time I've put my foot in a saddle stirrup since I broke my ankle. The McClellan stirrups were longer than the western saddle's.

They had a buckboard in the children's area that I just HAD to climb aboard.

 This pretty coach is known as a surrey.

Isn't this Native American beaded horse collar just gorgeous?

I loved this little chuckwagon complete with fold up table, cabinets, drawers, and a coffee grinder attached to the side.

This was a children's hearse, very sad.

Here, you can see a sleigh in the foreground, a black doctor's buggy, and a small covered wagon.

This saddle cover was used by the Pony Express riders for mail delivery. I guess they didn't deliver many catalogs in those days, huh?

Isn't this coach pretty? I do so love the color yellow.

This was a mine exhibit complete with the board showing the miner's tags at the right. When a tag was missing from the board, they knew the miner was still down in the mine.

This horse had such a silly expression, "leaving so soon?"

Yes, we had a long drive home.