I’ll take Truth or Consequences for $50!

We drove our Bird-house from Mesilla to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico last week. The road follows along the Rio Grande, and it’s interesting to see how the river fills up and broadens the farther north we go. When we went to Mexico we crossed the river and it was empty. Here in T or C, it is a strong river, dammed in places, and providing irrigation all the way. We were surprised to travel a lush, broad valley nearly 60 miles long, planted with Pecans, onion and garlic, and alfalfa. All the fields are irrigated by the flood method; we have seen very few sprinklers no matter what the crop. Pecan orchards really stand out because most growers keep the ground clear of grass or weeds. It obviously helps during harvest when the trees are shaken and the nuts swept up. At least one major grower, however, lets grass and weeds grow as the nuts grow, because they do not use toxic sprays and the ladybugs and aphid eaters they cultivate nest in the grass.

We didn’t realize that New Mexico is so high. The lowest State Park here is 3,200 ft, and the highest is 8,500. This west-central part of the state is very different from what we saw going east to Roswell. Other than the mountain towns of Ruidoso and Cloudcroft, the landscape is a mind-numbing flatness, desert unrelieved even by mesquite. You can see why they thought it was okay to test the atomic bomb. (They now open up the Trinity blast site to the public two days a year. We’re passing.) But here in west-central NM, the land is a rosy green wash of hills and buttes, dotted with Juniper shrubs. There is no more Saguaro, but still a lot of Agave and Yucca. We see many fences made of dried Yucca stalks.

For years I have told you all that Truth or Consequences was where I wanted to go first when we got on the road. Leaving Utah in January, it wasn’t possible to travel the mountains to get here – we had to go south and swing up – but here we are and it is exactly what I thought it would be.

Kevin’s Dad, Bill Mullin, was raised by his grandparents, Charlie and Flossie Witt. They were harness horse people (Grandpa was a trainer of world class pacers) and wintered here in Truth or Consequences. I have good memories of Grandma Flossie telling us about this little town and the healing hot springs that no doubt brought them here. Grandpa died in 1964 and Grandma Flossie died in 1970 and they are buried here in the ancient little Hot Springs Cemetery. I felt like I had completed a circle when I found their graves and put some flowers on it. I bought artificial flowers for the first time in my life and had a real hard time doing it, but both flower shops here are full of “eternal bouquets” and the only real flowers were saggy roses at the IGA marked down to $29.00. Besides, as Dave consoled me, the wind blows so hard, and it’s so hot, real flowers wouldn’t last a day. The cemetery isn’t very well tended, but it is lovingly visited, as attested to by the acres of artificial flowers and religious artifacts. Visitors seeing Grandma and Grandpa’s grave will know they are loved. Davey got those flowers anchored so they will stand up to a hurricane.

There is no WalMart in T or C, and no fabric store. Considering its re-birth in the 50’s, it is surprisingly undiscovered. Ralph Edwards, of This is Your Life fame, had a radio show called Truth or Consequences and in about 1952, he broadcast a call for towns who might be willing to change their name to Truth or Consequences. Said he would bring the whole show there and broadcast at least once a year. This little dead mining town of Hot Springs thought why not? They hoped to get advertising for their mineral waters and bring in tourists. This part of New Mexico was well populated until the silver market fell apart at the turn of the century. So the town changed its name and Ralph Edwards has come once a year for 50 years, even after his radio show closed. He’s not coming this year – the annual Fiesta and Ralph Edwards Day is this weekend — but Moe down at the art store/gallery says he was here a couple of weeks ago, in frail health, but delivering an autographed picture for auction. We’re planning to take in the festivities. Ted Turner has a very large ranch 15 miles down the road, and I’m hoping he’ll drop by the rodeo.

We’re in a little RV park up on a hill overlooking the town, Cielo Vista. We checked out a couple of parks that went right over our Funk Index. Found a couple of cute ones but would have had to wedge our big Bird butt into it. A little space is nice when you’re staying a week or so. We’re finding the daily rates for a lot of average parks are higher than we expected — $19 to $22/night. The weekly rate gets it down a few dollars. Even the State parks are high. We thought we wanted to stay at Elephant Butte Lake, near T or C, but it was $22/night and the Park Service wouldn’t let us go see a site without paying $5 — HAH I don’t think so. Cielo Vista is better. We can walk or bike to downtown (2 miles round trip) and take the waters ($5 for 1/2 hour). I am having such fun cooking. I am learning to make tortillas (won’t Katie love that!?!) and getting more chili savvy. Yesterday Davey had Billy the Kid’s Mother’s molasses bread pudding for breakfast!! Life is good!

Love to all,

Sam