Truth or Consequences

Truth or Consequences is such an interesting name for a city.  While I was searching for some places to visit along our route to California, I knew there had to be something special to this place.  Otherwise, why in the world would it be named "Truth or Consequences"?  First, I learned that T or C (commonly called by the locals) was originally named Hot Springs.  It changed its name after a popular radio station in 1950 to win a competition.  Second, it was originally named Hot Springs for good reason.  I started to research which was the best hot springs resort to visit in T or C.    

The entire place oozes with serenity.  You enter to this beautiful, peaceful garden.  There are a few rooms that are available to stay in for the night or you can pull your camper into one of their camping (parking) spots.  You can also visit per hour, which we did, since we planned to stay in Las Cruces for the evening.

The common mineral hot springs pools temperatures range from 100 degrees to 108 degrees. 

It was also a great place to take a nap from our exhausting day of driving.

The open-air hot springs are on the banks of the Rio Grande River.   You can watch the people who choose to use floatation devices to cruise down the Rio Grande.

Apparently, there are therapeutic benefits of the geothermal water.

We were curious about the private pools so we booked one.  As you can see, it can be closed off to the public if you wanted.  Those are curtains in the front that can be closed and the door to enter is locked.  Privacy for those who don't want to share a pool with a stranger or...   

Here's the name of the place.  It's a great place to relax and get some peace and quiet.  We passed a few on our way to reaching the Riverbend.  I'm sure the other hot springs are just as relaxing but they can't beat the view of the mountains and the river.  

Don't Go Into The Lights

Since we were already there, we had to visit the Prada sculpture.  I saw a few pairs of shoes that were absolutely adorable. Good thing for me the store was never going to open.  Notice the President Trump head that was placed on the door.  There was a couple sitting across the street in beach chairs.  I could only assume that they were the ones that placed it there and just wanted to see the reactions of people that visited.  Kind of weird... but again, Marfa was kind of weird.

I learned about Marfa from a pinterest post that showed Beyonce in front of the Prada sculpture.  The Prada sculpture looks like a store in the middle of nowhere but never is open for business.  It does display actual Prada shoes and purses, which is a big deal for some of us.  But as much as I have a shoe fetish, this wasn't a compelling reason to visit Marfa.  I continued to read more about Marfa.   I learned about an artist, David Judd, who left New York to make Marfa his home and has installed much of his modern art there.  I also learned that you could camp in teepees, tents, trailers and a hammock grove at El Cosmico (a more compelling reason to go).  Then I read about the "mystery lights" of Marfa.  There are these lights that can be seen in the distance off of the 90 highway.  Research has been conducted but there still is no concrete evidence on why or how this phenomena occurs.  Now I had to go visit Marfa and see these lights for myself.  Some people have seen them in various colors, varying amounts and movements.  Some see little dots and others see glowing globes. What was I going to see??

Dakotah was a little peeved about the drive there.  Our GPS loves to do this thing where we take a long round-about way of getting to places.  I swear sometimes that the voice in the GPS is real and just loves to prank us by making us drive in circles.  We took the "scenic" route to get there-- not much to see.  

Marfa is a sleepy little town.  From this photo, you'd think that we just got there on a slow weekday.  We were actually there on a Saturday.  This photo was taken around 5pm and all of the stores were already closed.

There aren't very many places to stay in Marfa.  El Cosmico was booked so we stayed at the Thunderbird Motel, a swanky, minimalist-style hotel.  It had a small pool that was surrounded by beautiful desert-scape.  Across the street was their restaurant, The Capri, which was where we had to check in for our reservation as well.  When we checked in I was happy to see that they had a huge bar and was serving dinner that night.  Dinner was ridiculous.  Service sucked.  There were a couple of waiters walking around but you needed to seek their service rather than them asking you if you wanted to order anything.  We received a bar menu, which was two pages of various drinks (kind-of overwhelming), and a quarter sheet of a few listed appetizers, mains and a side.  I thought these were the specials so I asked the waiter for a menu and he responded with a bit of an attitude, "That IS the menu."  Okay, fine.  The problem was the only two mains on the menu were over $60.  So we ordered a charcuterie board and a cheese board, a couple of drinks and called it a day.

From what I read online, I was forewarned about the limited places to eat .  It was recommended to visit a grocery store before we reached Marfa.  I honestly didn't think it would be a problem since we were going to be there during the weekend.

This is a picture of the Marfa lights that I found online.

We waited until dark to go and check out the Marfa lights.  There is a viewing platform about 15 minutes out from town.  When we walked onto the platform there were already lots of people lined up looking out into the horizon.  There were a couple of them talking aloud saying things like, "It just moved,"  "There is three of them now,"  "Those just split into two."  We looked out and couldn't figure out what they were looking at.  We sat on a bench behind everyone to try and figure it out.  Finally, I just decided to ask the stupid question to a group on the platform, "What are we looking at?"  They pointed out the lights in the distance that I thought were streetlights.  Apparently, we were looking in the direction to an area that has no streetlights, buildings, and roads-- just vast empty land.      

Snorkeling In Texas

Balmorhea State Park has a cool oasis in the high desert.  It is the world's largest spring-fed swimming pool located in West Texas.

Many families visit Balmorhea.  What a great place to visit, especially when you live many miles away from the beach.  They even have scuba lessons here.

More than 15 million gallons of water flow through the pool each day, gushing from the San Solomon Springs.  

This is the shallow part of the pool.  The pool is up to 25 feet deep, covers 1.75 acres and holds 3.5 million gallons of water.  The water temperature stays at 72 to 76 degrees year-round.

Double-shaka from Dakotah.

Here are some scuba divers in the pool.

Dakotah was trying o catch a fish-- notice it right in front of the camera.

I love this photo of Dakotah taking a break.

There were tons of colorful fish.  At least these ones didn't nibble on us like he ones in the Hamilton Pool.

Best photo of me snorkeling.

Diving Into the Cave

On the same day we visited the Hamilton Pool, we continued to travel westward stopping to see the Caverns of Sonora located about 3 hours away.  It's considered a world-class cave because of its stunning array of calcite crystal formations, especially helictites.

These million-year-old shells were found in the cave.

Our guides were Thomas and his younger sister.

On the left is a column, when a stalactite, such as the one hanging on the right and a  stalagmite, the ones on the floor, connect to make one solid piece.  It takes a hundred years for just an inch of either to be developed so imagine how many hundreds of years it took before that column was created.

There are many types of deposits and are named based on their appearance.  Some of these are called straw stalactite because there is a hole in the middle where the water drips through and it creates a long, skinny straw-like stalactite.  

We were not allowed to touch any of the cave.  It was difficult to resist but you really got to get up close to see them.

The guide hits a switch to turn on the lights in front of us and then turn off the ones behind us.  At one point he turned off all lights for about 5 minutes so that we can see how it is to be in the pitch black cave.  It's really dark-- your eyes can't adjust because there is literally no light anywhere.  He said that an adult would become blind in three months if they stayed in the cave and a child would become blind in 10 days.

Many of these formations are similar to coral that you would find under the sea.  Although at one time, this entire cave was underwater.  These formations were created about a million years ago.  

At this depth, the gases mixed with water in the aquifer.  The resulting highly acidic water dissolved out the limestone, forming the cave.

Back Into Our Element

This is where we belong, what we crave for.  The beauty of nature and all it has to offer.  The places we'll be visiting from now through when we get home are more of our style.  Not to say that we didn't appreciate what the cities that we visited had to offer but we really feel at home with nature.  The Hamilton Pool was slated to be closed for swimming when I checked online before our visit but lucky for us when we arrived it was open!

It's a short beautiful 1/2 mile hike to the pool.

When you finally get there you can't believe what you see.
Dakotah jumped right into the 71degree natural spring water to swim to the other side.

My beautiful girl standing underneath the waterfall.

There were fish in the pool.  There were small ones that likes to nibble off your feet and then there were a few of these giant catfish.

Dakotah and I were one of the few who arrived early and had the pool all to ourselves.
In the background you can see the people starting to pile in.

Love this shot!

Yes, I'm a dork with my blue sneakers on but my tender feet couldn't handle walking on the gravel bottom floor.

Here's a cool perspective of the pool.  It's the backside of the wall to the right.

Imagine that this all used to be underwater.

The Hamilton Pool really is a beautiful place to visit.  You'll need a reservation to get in because they limit the capacity.

I loved the look of these trees with their roots exposed in the river, sitting amongst the boulders and the water.

This is, so far, my favorite place that we visited.  I don't think we would have ever gotten the chance if we weren't driving cross-country.  The Hamilton Pool is located in the middle of Texas away from the busy cities in Travis County.  If you ever visit Austin, you may consider taking the drive out to see the Hamilton Pool.

#Shiplap

The HGTV home improvement show, Fixer Upper, put Waco on the map.  The adorable couple, Chip and Joanna Gaines have caught the heart of many and it's apparent that their goodness is not all for the show.  The Magnolia Market at the Silos is family-friendly, the staff are very hospitable and exude enthusiasm for working there.  The venue has a bakery, a shop, space for kids to play, a garden with its own shop and about seven food trucks parked in the back ready to open for lunch.  It seems that we lucked out for not having to stand in line the day we visited.  

We learned from an employee that there are plans for these silos.  One will become a man's shop per Chip's request and the other silo will be all about Joanna.  

This garden was adorable.  Notice the little green house in the back right corner.

This was a cute little sitting place for kids.  I made my big kid sit in this man-made teepee for a photo.

Gotta love the vintage truck!

Dakotah wants one of these swings in our yard.

I can't believe that I didn't take a photo of the front of the shop.  Sorry, you'll have to check it out on your own if you're interested in seeing it.  We did take some 360 photos but I'm still learning to upload those.

We did take a short shuttle ride around Waco.  Not much to see, unless you are interested in the Dr. Pepper Museum.  Even if you're not a Fixer Upper fan, Magnolia Market at the Silos is worth a visit if you're near Waco.