2024 Texas Road Trip: Davis Mountain State Park and T or C

When we left Liberty Hill, we knew it was time to quickly get moving. The thunderstorms and tornado warnings were all around. We were planning on a mainly North/Northwest track, but tornado warning made us head due west towards El Paso instead of directly towards Albuquerque, NM, as planned. We had some strong rain initially and then high winds the rest of the day but were able to avoid the worst of the storms.

Above you can see the travel was bit stormy to start but really it smoothed out after a few hours and then was just hot at 88 degrees in London, Tx.

A couple hours later we made it to our camp site, and we settled in at Davis Mountains State Park where we were to spend the next 4 days. It was very peaceful and a perfect place to get some work done and relax a bit. The park was named after Jefferson Davis (yes that one) and unfortunately hasn't been renamed. The nearby town, Fort Davis, holds his name too, where prior to the Civil War he was in charge of the army outpost established to protect early settlers and fight the local Indian tribes. Afterwards he became a member of Congress and then President of the Confederacy that tried to destroy the U.S. It's important to acknowledge and learn about the harm that was and continues to be done to both tribal peoples and Black Americans.

The location was great for the next few days of work and bit of relaxation. It was beautiful in this remote part of SW Texas in the Chihuahuan Desert. It was close to Big Bend National Park, which we would like to visit next time we are in this part of the country. This is the northern part of the Chihuahuan Desert, most of which is in Mexico.

After four days of work and and a little exploration. Friday came and the trek north towards home began. Our plan was to travel through New Mexico and then spend our last full week of the trip in Bryce Canyon National Park.

States in the Western U.S. are huge and take many hours, sometimes more than a day to drive across! We had to pick a place to stay for a couple days in Northern New Mexico, so we settled on the quirky town of Truth or Consequences (called T or C for short). The city used to be called Hot Springs but in 1950 the host of the Truth or Consequences TV game show offered to broadcast the show from the first town that agreed to rename itself after the show - so the town became Truth or Consequences. We happened to hit it on a Friday and the next day was their local "Art Pop" walk which several people said we should stay for, so we decided to stay an extra day, We found a pretty campground overlooking Elephant Butte Lake, the largest lake in NM, which is actually a resevoir created by a dam on the Rio Grande river.

We had a good time but are also not sure it was the best decision. The next day was well...interesting.

So as you can see all was going well the first day. he next day we decided to go into town for a look around. Well, we found out quickly what Consequence we might face.

As we drove into town, we first saw this museum and decided it would be a good way to kick off our walks between all the shops. The focus of the museum was on the history of early settlers, building the dam for the reservoir, and Geronimo. We were wandering the various rooms and viewing the displays when a very loud alarm suddenly went off. We thought that was weird and walked to the front to see what was happening, and then looked at the front doors noticed they were very much locked! We were locked in the museum and had set the alarm off! We then knew we were not being careful enough when deciding to visit this odd museum in the strange town of Truth or Consequences. 😬 Yes, this actually happened.

We looked outside and saw someone we thought was a museum volunteer in her car and started frantically waving our arms and banging on the window. She didn't seem to notice us and was getting ready to drive away. Then another tourist came by to go to the museum and by shouting through the door we explained we were locked in - she then flagged down the other person who got on the phone and called 911. The museum manager eventually showed up to let us out, full of apologies and wanting to make sure we were alright, and went to try to turn off the very loud alarm. He was followed by a police officer who said he had never had a call like this before. 🤣

Later when shopping at the sporting goods store the owner said this had happened to another couple in the bookstore across the street. So if you visit this town be very careful, make sure to do everything right and tell the truth, and always keep your escape route open.

After all that we found many of the shops closing because they were going to reopen for the Art Walk and a "fashion show" later that evening. We ended up being a bit late and somehow missed most of everything, but we did meet some very interesting gallery owners and residents. It was refreshing to be in a very creative, artsy, hippy community after conservative Texas. Check out the picture of the van below! This is certainly a place where folks go to slow down, get out of the fast lane, and just be themselves.

We would definitely stop here again on another adventure, especially to spend time at the various hot springs and experience more of the art scene. We would definitely bring our granola clothing, tie dye and Birkenstocks though! Maybe we wouldn't have been locked in the museum if we hadn't looked so touristy.