The Adventures of T&A

Well, it’s laundry day.  We just bought some Coleman fleece bag liners and need to wash them to de-fuzz them.  We’ve been using our 0 degree rated down sleeping bags that have been keeping us warm enough, but since we’ve only been able to shower about every 4 or 5 days, we thought they might need a wash.  We got these bag liners because they would be easier to wash on the road and would help keep our down bags cleaner.  Down is very touchy about how you wash and dry it, and it takes a long time (it took us over three hours to dry our down bags this time).  While in Las Cruces, we also took the Tundra in for its’ 75,000 mile check up.  I felt better about having the truck checked out before heading into the desert for a week.   

When we finally finished with the truck, we headed for Aguirre (a-gar-ee) Springs, BLM land at the edge of Las Cruces.  We found a nice campsite at the foot of the Organ Mountains with an incredible view.  It’s a campground, but they only charged $3. per night. 

We found out by daylight that we weren’t in the place the officer suggested… oops!   We were in an arroyo, a dry creek bed.  We drove further down the road and found the spot he was referring to, but it was really trashed.  It was definitely the party place.  We went into the town of T or C too look for a hot springs for a soak.  Andrew didn’t like the looks of one place and the manager of another place gave me the creeps!  And neither one had a shower we could use to wash after soaking in mineral water.  We decided to go back to Elephant Butte SP and pay $5. day use fee and use the shower and day use area for breakfast.  

We went back to the museum and since we paid half price yesterday ($1.50 each) she charged us only half price today.  What a bargain!  

We looked around for a couple of hours and then headed for Las Cruces and High Desert Brewing, a brew pub we encountered on a previous trip.  In Las Cruces we stocked up on groceries and other stuff.  We found High Desert Brewing and they were packed.  The place is about as big as a small two bedroom house, maybe 15 tables.  We had dinner and a beer (or two).  By the time we finished, things had slowed down a bit and we asked about camping in the area… free camping.  Our waitress said there’s a place near Radium Springs, on BLM land and she’d send Luke over (the other table server) to give us some directions, since he was more familiar with it.  We found out that Luke goes fishing out there a lot, but the river’s down now and there probably wouldn’t be anyone out there.  We mention that we’re from Georgia and Luke tells us he’s from Carrolton!  Small world!!  He’s out here for school and family.  We moved up to the bar to finish our beer and talk with the locals and Bob Goslin, the brewer of the day, came out to sit an have a beer.  They have three brewers on staff and we sat and chatted with Bob about beer and home brewing.  We finally had to say goodbye and went to find our campsite for the night.  The spot Like sent us to overlooks the Rio Grande river, but someone else had it for the night.  We went down another road and found another flat spot that would do just fine for the night.

We took an early morning hike in Water Canyon.  We found some old foundations from previous homesteads.  We had a quick breakfast from the tailgate.  We stopped in Socorro at the public library to update our website with their high speed internet access.  We continued south toward Big Bend National Park.  

When we came to a town named Truth or Consequences we wondered how it got such an unusual name, so we stopped with the intension to ask at visitor services.    Visitor Information is in the Geronimo Springs Museum.  They’re about to close so we look around for just a few minutes.  The town got it’s unusual name from the radio/TV show from the 1040’s and 50’s of the same name.  Ralph Edwards, the show’s host, made the announcement in 1949 it was seeking a city to change it’s name to Truth or Consequences to celebrate the show’s 10th anniversary.  This was meant to be a stunt to for the very popular, family oriented, humorous show.  Edwards’ promised the anniversary show would be broadcast from the chosen city with national coverage of the name change, thus giving the city nationwide publicity.  They received letters from several US cities, one being Hot Springs, New Mexico.  After interviewing townspeople and officials, Hot Springs, NM was selected, but  the final decision was left up to the residents for a vote.  On April 1st, 1950, the city held a Fiesta with the radio show broadcast held at the newly named city being broadcast to a nationwide audience.  The initial agreement was for only for one year, Mr. Edwards made the trip each year for the Fiesta for the next fifty years, 1950 thru 2000.  The town voted two more times on the name, and each time voted to keep it.  

The Geronimo Springs Museum we visited had lots of memorabilia about the radio and TV show that named the city, but they also had a very impressive collection of Native American pottery and other bone artifacts; originals, not reproductions.  They have hundreds of full sized pots in very good condition, from differing periods.  The area has several natural hot springs that the Natives used for many years before the Spanish came to the area.   The museum had lots of items from the very diverse history of the area: Pre-historic Native Americans (Anastazi)  Historic Native Americans (Geronimo, etc.), Spanish Conquistadors, miners and early white settlers.  

We didn’t get to see much the first day, so we decided to camp in the area and come back tomorrow.  We drove around trying to find a place to legally camp.  We stopped at Elephant Butte State Park, a dammed lake-reservoir that wanted to charge us $8. for no facilities.  We drove back into town to check into some hot springs.  We passed a police station and thought… Why don’t we ask a cop where we can legally camp?  As we pulled up in front of the station, an officer was also pulling up.  We asked and officer Callaway was quite helpful in pointing us to a dirt road on the other side of the river, a place he used to party as a kid. 

Jen went to work and we hit the road.  We checked out a town Jen mentioned, Madrid (pronounced Mad-rid), NM.  The road out there is under construction and we’re moving kind of slow.  The town of Madrid is a too small artsy town, but not natural artsy, more like wrecked car-parts artsy.  Ick.

We called Carlsbad Caverns about a wild cave tour Andrew wanted to do, the Hall of the White Mountain Giant (the only tour at Carlsbad he hasn’t done yet).  The tours are only on Saturdays, only at 1 pm.  Tours for the next three weeks are full.   It doesn’t look good for Andrew, but we may still show up and hope for a cancellation.

While heading further south, we saw a sign for the Very Large Array radio telescope, Plains of San Agustin, NM and took the exit.  It’s about 50 miles from the interstate, but we have time.  This is very cool, the VLA has been featured in many movies and documentaries, including the movie “Contact”.  The VLA is an astronomical observatory with 27 large disk-shaped antennas that are connected to form a single large radio telescope.  We got out the camp stove on the tailgate and fixed lunch in the parking lot of the visitor’s center.  When we got inside, we happened to catch up to a school tour being lead by someone there at the VLA.  It was a great tour and we found out much more than we would have with the usual walking tour.

There is lots of BLM land out here, so after our tour, we found a free camping site in the Water Canyon campground in the Cibola National Forest.  

This morning was also cold, even though we’re heading south.  It was 11 degrees this morning, but it didn’t seem as bad as the night in Pike National Forest.  Mike, Robin’s husband, had to leave early this morning for a job out of state.  Robin took the kids to school, so when we heard her come back in we got up and chatted.  Robin’s place consists of 2 main buildings, one is a bath house and kitchen and the other is where they all sleep (Robin, Mike and the three kids).  Both buildings are straw bale that they built themselves and have sod roofs that are planted with medicinal herbs.  There is also an outdoor bath house that is wood enclosed with two showers, an outdoor kitchen she uses in the summer for canning and other big events.  Water is a big issue in the desert, so Robin has plants around the base of the bath house to utilize the run off.  She’s planted fruit trees and grows what she can in her garden.  She’s quite the Woods Woman; her courses offered at Earth Knack include hide tanning, blacksmithing, beekeeping, and lots of other primitive and homesteading skills.  Homesteading is what we want to do, on some level.  Her location is really in the wild.  She has coyotes, bears and mountain lions all around her property.  An electric fence keeps the bears out of her bee hives and three dogs keep the mountain lions and coyotes at bay.  She said she walked out on morning to find a mountain lion sitting on the hood of her car!  She showed us another straw bale house they are building for the kids’ godfather.  It’s about the size we’d be interested in for ourselves.  They had done some beautiful detailing in the house.  Mike has done several doors with wood inlays.  Just gorgeous! We hated to leave, but we made a promise to come back.  

We drove down to Santa Fe to visit Andrew’s friend, Jen Foote.   Andrew met her on his previous drive-about while caving.  She and her boyfriend are very active in caving.  We got there in time for a quick shower and dinner out.

We slept pretty well last night, despite it being really cold.  We had a water bottle in between our pillows in the truck to keep it from freezing, but when we took it out to brush our teeth, it quickly started to freeze.  Our thermometer said it was 15 degrees.  Andrew’s pocket PC that we’ve been using for navigating gave a warning notice that the battery was too cold! Even the computers knew it was too cold!  We decided to splurge and eat out for breakfast.  We started driving south on I-25 and we saw an old friend… Waffle House!!  We had to stop and get our dose of grits and grease.  Yummmm…..

We stopped in West Pueblo, CO to ask about real estate (part of the trip is to find a place to relocate).  She suggested a few small towns in the area that might be affordable.  We checked out Beulah, CO, which is not much of a city, but it is at the base of the Front Range (foothills of the Rockies).  We drove through and went out along a gravel road through the San Isabel National Forest.  When we came out on pavement again, we stumbled upon Bishop’s Castle!   Bishop’s Castle is a one man miracle achievement.  It’s built all by Jim Bishop, by hand, by himself.  It’s kind of a rogue tourist attraction, with lots of very dangerous overlooks and scary walkways. It is wild and beautiful… and scary!  We talked with Jim a few minutes as we were leaving.  He’s quite the showman and a self proclaimed egotist.  I got some video of his ranting about the government, both of Colorado and the Federal Government.  

We stopped at another small town of Westcliffe to check out more real estate.  The realty agent told us a bit about the town and how it was more of a summer resort area, not much happening in the winter.  It had a nice warm feel about it from the types of shops we saw.  Other areas suggested were Salida, Pagosa Springs and Crestone.  We were running late (again) and made it to our friend Robin O’donal’s place at Earth Knack about 9pm.  They were already in bed so we just camped in the parking lot for the night.

Helen had to go to work, she’s a teacher.  Dan said it was 6 degrees this morning.   He is currently working construction on a neighbor’s house addition and we went over to check out the construction.  By 9am it had warmed up to about 20 degrees.  It was much colder than it was in Edwards and the wind made it feel much colder.  We had to let Dan get to work and we headed out to Denver.  We gave Don a call and made arrangements with meet up with him.  We met Don at Colbert’s place in Valdosta in January and he had sent an email that he was visiting his parents outside Denver (Littleton, CO).  On our way there, we passed a sign that said “Brewery Tours” and we had to check it out.  Even though it’s only 10 am.  We didn’t realize at first we were heading for Coors Brewery in Golden, Co.  This place is the largest, single location brewery in the world.  This place brews Coors, Killians, Keystone, Zima and many more brands.  They not only brew here, but they also make their own glass bottles and aluminum cans at this location.  We sampled several flavors of  beer and Zima.  (Burp)  We had a quick lunch of cold pizza in the parking lot and continued on. 

We were late getting over to Don’s parent’s house in Littleton.  Really nice folks, we chatted for a few minutes.  Don took us out for a hike in Roxborough State Park, not far away.  The park was closing at 5pm and it was already 4, so we parked outside the gate and just walked in.  We tried to climb up a “hogback ridge” but the thick brush, steep terrain and snow on the ground made it too rough for me.  We came down and walked along the road.  A park ranger stopped us and told us that the park was closing and we had to leave.  So we said goodbye to Don and looked for a place to camp for the night.  We drove south to Pike National Forest and parked at a trailhead.  It was very cold, about 25 degrees, and lots of snow on the ground.  We made a light dinner of soup and jumped in the back of the truck.  Our sleeping bags were warm enough, once we got in them at about 6pm…. and at 19 degrees.