From Tight Mask to Fancy Free

 

This fine feathered friend pointed to our way out of New Mexico. He is located on a hill between Deming and Las Cruces. If you are viewing on a small screen, he is not real, he is a METAL roadrunner. 

The day we headed out of New Mexico was a special day for the aliens... and we saw evidence to prove it, over Las Cruces

The port of entry is shaped precisely to fit their spacecrafts.

The remainder of the drive was pretty uneventful, except for a big crash closing down one lane of the I-10 east, close to the state line. Once we eek'd by the crash it was smooth sailing into Texas.

Smooth sailing lasted for about 50 miles into Texas where a few tractor trailers had it out.

Besides ending up in the westbound side of traffic, part of his load was left in one of the eastbound lanes... I-10 went from a four lane highway doing 80 MPH, to a two lane barely doing 5 MPH. We were less than 100 miles from Pecos, and ready for a break.

Yeah, we made it to our new temporary home, time to settle in and get dinner going. Dinner wasn't anything special, just leftovers... and mighty fine they were.

Now Pecos (pronounced Pecas, small "a" or "e" by the locals) isn't a large town, but they are large enough to have what I call A "mini-Walmart". The store is the size of a conventional grocery store, with a lot of what a customer might want/need, and groceries too. We spent the rest of the day figuring out what we wanted to do while here, options are slim. Dinner was one of the big things on the list, and we decided to BBQ a couple of rib eye steaks.

If you remember our last blog report I spoke of El Rey Butcher Shop... here are a couple examples of their meat. I fired up the Little Smokey Joe and got to cookin' 'em. A funny thing occurred... the wind thought it was invited to the cookout, because it went from a gentle breeze to a steady 15 to 20 mph wind with periodic gusts. Have no fear folks, I did get the steaks cooked and delivered into the house for consumption. There were leftovers, known as tomorrows breakfast.

The leftovers were great with scrambled eggs for me, and pork belly and eggs for Carol.

Our direction for the day was to visit a car museum in town called "Memory Lane Museum", but as all good plans go... they went. Everything indicated that they were open, but when we got there, that was not the case. We moved on smartly to plan "B", ask the UPS driver if there is something else to see. Fortunately for us, the driver Carol spoke to recommended another museum down the street. He couldn't tell us the name of the museum, but he knew it was there. The museum he referred us to was called "West of the Pecos Museum".

Before we went to the museum we visited an old caboose near the museum. Like most places, we could not go in.

As with most small town museums, it provides history of the pioneering families as well as later generations. Out in the back area there are several older buildings, one of which was probably the original jail. There is a replica of Judge Roy Beans office and home too.

Unfortunately due to COVIDS, we could not enter the buildings. Inside was a different story. 

The original building started out as a saloon, later a hotel was added. The saloon has stories to tell to those willing to listen.

The Bartender tells a little history of the saloon. The saloon was built in 1896, and wild in its heyday. As one looks around, bullet holes can still be seen in the front wall, around the entrance. Walking through the saloon to a room off to the side there are railroad artifacts on display.

These were two safes used by the Southern Pacific Railroad. They also have on display the original ticket window from the train station down the street, lanterns, and various hardware for the tracks.

Upstairs there are multiple rooms displaying everything from cultural artifacts to reproduction offices of the doctors that served the community. One room has two film projectors from the old movie house.

This was the newer model of the two. The older version had the vent stack over the light assembly, which prevented the film from melting, or possibly catching fire.

This room was representative of a woman's work of  the era.

This is a panoramic view of what their typical home looked like.

Oh, did I mention that this place has a love for big boots, there is a "boot trail" visitors can walk, we didn't.

There are stories on both sides of the boots. The other side of the top boot depicted Pecos Bill riding a tornado. There are boots throughout the downtown area. Official website:

https://visitpecos.com/visit-pecos/destination/west-of-the-pecos-museum2

The next day we headed south and back to the west a bit to visit Fort Davis National Historic Site (NHS), about an hours drive from Pecos. Surprisingly a good portion of the buildings are in good shape. Because of COVIDS most of the buildings were closed to tourists.

The fort was operational from 1854 to 1891, protecting travelers on the San Antonio to El Paso road. The fort was named after the then Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. The fort was first built in 1854 and utilized by the army until 1861. In the spring of 1861 the Confederate troops occupied it until the summer of 1862, when the Union forces took it back. As with any show of power, the Union then abandoned it, laying deserted until 1867. 

In 1867 under new command, the fort was rebuilt, and finished in 1880. The new installation was over 100 structures and quarters for 400 soldiers. By 1891 the Department of the Army deemed that Fort Davis had "outlived its usefulness", and it was abandoned again.

In 1963 the fort became property of the U.S. government again. While it was in the ownership of private civilians, much efforts was given trying to preserve as many buildings as possible. 

Let's take a walk through the installation. Before we do, I'm going to throw some more tidbits of information at you. 1.) the original fort enlisted barracks were built on "true north". 2.) the second time, the enlisted barracks were built on "magnetic north"... don't ask me why, I wasn't stationed there, I was in the Navy. 3.) the first black graduate was stationed here. He was 2nd Lt. Henry O. Flipper. I am going to let you do research on this gentleman because there is history to be found on him.

OK, now we will take the walk. Walking the grounds, visitors can see the ruins of many buildings. These ruins are the stone foundations for the buildings. The National Park Service is trying to restore as many of the building as possible with funding available.

This map represents the second build of the installation. The original fort was above the hospital (top left building), and the enlisted barracks about where they are located on this map (middle group of buildings). The buildings that have been restored are: two of the enlisted barracks, the officer houses (upper left center), Commissary, hospital, and one of the stable areas. Currently the only buildings that are accessible are the Commanding Officer's house, a junior officers house, and the hospital. Visitors can look into many of the closed buildings that were once open to the public.

The enlisted barracks could only be viewed through the windows.

Behind one of the barracks lay the ruin foundation for the Chow Hall/Kitchen.

The Commissary.

The storeroom at the back of the building is foundation ruins currently.

Here is the foundation ruins of one of the enlisted barracks.

In case you are wondering where they took care of business... it's not forgotten.

For you that do not know what a "privy" is... large outhouse would be a suitable substitute.

There were a couple officer two story hoses we could look in, but that was about it.

The mesh is for keeping people out of the unsafe structure. Adobe, brick, and plaster were used in building of the second installation.

"Officer row" homes are being restored, and I mentioned earlier, we could walk through the Commanding Officer's and a junior officers homes. They were both furnished as they would have been during their occupation.

Commanding Officer's home.

You will notice there is a bit of a difference in the junior officer home.

The one thing both homes had in common was the location of the kitchen, which was out back of the house. The servants would do the cooking out there and bring it into the house at meal times. The servants ate in the kitchen building as well as cooking.

Servants were either people out from the town, or soldiers on their off duty hours. In either case they were paid workers.

If your sick of me, you can hit the hospital for curing. The original hospital was a temporary structure maybe a 100 feet by 30 feet, with a dirt floor. The new structure was made of adobe and brick and plaster, with bed space for 12 patients. Later on another wing was added on to provide 12 more beds.

Some of the modern instruments of the day. That tree saw on the right was used for amputations, if you were wondering.

Here you go...any drug you would need to get better with, the local pharmacy.

Eleven beds no waiting, there is one current patient.

The best thing about the old days was the fact that medical care was free, including the ride to the hospital, if you needed one.

That's right, a free ambulance right, probably to the back door.

One last bit of strategic military planning, besides putting the hospital as far away as possible, was building the Magazine about 300 feet behind the hospital, against the maountainside.

What you see would not have been the only explosives, ammunition and such to be kept there.

All in all, it was a fun time, got lots of walking in. With the walk came resistance training.

The wind was a constant 20 to 25 mph, with gusts to 40 mph.

For those that like to hike, there are a few short trails around the fort.

There is one hike that is a 400 foot elevation change. It starts at the base of the mountain by one of the buildings, and climbs to the top of the mountain for a spectacular overview of the installation. For those not to sure... there are steps all the way up, and a railing at the edge of the cliff.

Official site is https://www.nps.gov/foda/index.htm

After our outing we hit the local drug store diner for lunch, and headed home.

The weekend was kind of a wash for doing anything, except for watching dust blow. Again the winds were blowing over 30 mph, with gusts near 50 mph. We were forced to close all the windows and turn on the AC. The weather here is been averaging the upper 70's, although a couple of days ago it was near 90.

Lookin' at moving on to Kerrville Texas for a week.