(13) Truth or Consequences, New Mexico

Truth or Consequences NM
Las Cruces NM

I’m back in Las Cruces, the second largest city in New Mexico (population 78,000) and I understand the fastest growing city in NM. What’s nice thought is that it still has a small town feeling and folks are friendly.

Back at Truth or Consequences, I stayed at the Elephant Butte State Park, overlooking the huge lake formed by damming the Rio Grande, once again. It was real windy the first couple of days as I explored the area. I had a nice hot springs experience at the Artesian Bath-House & R.V. Park. It’s a small R.V. park, prices range from $20 a night full hookup, $15 w/elect, $75 wkly + elect. and an unbelievable $100 a month + elect. I paid $5.00 for an hour in the hot springs, it’s only $3 if you stay there. You get a private room with a big concrete tub lined with tile work and you can refill the tub at about 104 degrees as often as you like. Dee runs the hot tub operation, so if you go say hi to her. Real nice down to earth kind of gal.

Later, I stopped in The White Coyote Café ( 113 Main St.) and had the most awesome fresh spinach, mushroom and feta cheese stuffed tart with a wonderfully fresh mixed green salad with pine nuts and a special dressing made with ameloshi vinegar and other exotic ingredients. It was so good I almost licked the plate! Moe and Eunice, own and run the small café. It has a warm atmosphere and is in an old adobe building with three foot thick walls.

The state park, Elephant Butte, had a fair amount of Elect. Sites for $14 a night. But for those who want to, you can park your rig right on the hard packed sand down my the edge of the water for only $8 a night. Primitive unmarked camp sites. I may very well do that the next time around. It looked really cool to see a couple of campers out way off in the distance, camping next to the waters edge, with a backdrop of magnificent mountains and mesa’s on the other side of the lake.

In Las Cruces I’ve actually had to get some work done. Yes, when I travel I do have to settle in some places and just get some work taken care of. The camper had to go in for warranty work on the water heater, I had received my mail and got a second audit on a past tax return. After going to H&R Block, they found out that I over paid them by $181 rather than the Governments assessment that I owed them $800+. Sure helps to go to a professional. Yippee. After adding the solar panels to my camper insurance policy and filling one of the propane tanks, my work was finally done. An interesting note, I went to the local IRS office and they were unable to help me with correcting my tax return. Nor were they able to pull up and print a copy of my 2005 1040 form. Said they weren’t allowed to have anyone’s personal information in their office. Hmmm.

My final tour in the area was just up the street about a quarter of a mile to the historic town of Old Mesilla. It’s filled with old adobe houses and shops. It’s where Billy the Kid was brought in and tried and sentenced to hang back in 1881. A true rough and tumble part of the old west.
A small museum in the old Tortilla Factory contained the story of John Ballou Newbrough the founder of a group called The Faithists. He “channeled” a book called the “Oahspe” which was considered a history of the world, both physical and spiritual. The top half of a page described what was going on in the “other world” and the lower part described the history of the world from the beginning to the Civil war era. Good ol John was directed to buy a new typewriter back in 1828 and the angles/spirit world used him to type over a 1,000 pages of material. His book is the first recorded use of the word “Starship”. One of his main tenants was that his followers were to take in homeless children and raise them without prejudice. His messages of higher calling said if everyone in a community the world over took in a homeless child, the world would soon solve the problem of poverty and homelessness.

There are so many stories around every corner. With inspiration, mystery, and sometimes downright oddities in life, that one has to begin to realize that the world is filled with some pretty fascinating people.