Truth or Consequences: The War for What’s Left of the West

A spiritual journey through cheeseburgers, caverns, and the crumbling remains of federal land.

We went to New Mexico to disappear. To fall off the grid and maybe, if we were lucky, fall off the map entirely. No phones. No pings. No meetings. Just dirt, sky, and our collective yearning to scream into the desert like it might echo back something holy. We needed clarity. Instead, we found an executive order aimed at hollowing out the desert and selling it to the highest bidder.

THE EXECUTIVE ORDER FROM HELL

March 20, 2025. Executive Order 14177. Signed with a Sharpie, birthed in a think tank, and now aimed squarely at the fragile skin of the American Southwest.

This is no ordinary land grab. It’s an all-out assault on BLM-managed public lands. And it doesn’t stop at exploration. It demands production. Mining. Refining. Smelting. Full-scale resource extraction, with environmental safeguards thrown out like empty Big Gulp cups.

The order waives permitting delays. It guts transparency. It instructs federal agencies to prioritize leasing land for mineral extraction — even on sites that hold cultural, ecological, or spiritual value.

National Parks? Still protected. For now.

But BLM land?

It’s open season.

And New Mexico is ground zero.

GREEN CHILE AND PROPHECY

We detoured through Hatch — chasing a dream and a cheeseburger.

Sparky’s delivered on both. Burgers soaked in green chile. Fries that could punch you in the throat. And a fortune cookie that appeared mysteriously on our tray like a message from the Ministry of Surreal Omens.

“You are being watched, but not by who you think.”

That landed wrong.

So did the next one:

“Your journey will end in the mountains.”

We laughed. Nervously. Then kept driving.

DESCENT INTO THE UNDERWORLD (CARLSBAD CAVERNS)

It began with a descent — 750 feet into the bowels of Carlsbad Caverns, where we learned that nature, left alone, can sculpt entire cathedrals from stone and time.

It felt sacred. It felt eternal. And as we climbed back out of that underworld into the dry heat of surface reality, we knew what we were leaving behind: a silence too deep for politics to reach.

BLM LAND: THE NIGHT WE CAMPED ON STOLEN TIME

We pitched tents in a patch of BLM land just west of nowhere. It was quiet in that unnerving way that makes you feel like something is waiting — not to hurt you, but to teach you something you don’t want to learn.

The ground was cracked. The stars were absolute. And we knew — this land is next.

It won’t be tents next year. It’ll be drills. Haul trucks. Private security. It’ll be the sound of silence torn open for gallium, yttrium, and God knows what else.

We passed around a joint (legal in New Mexico, thank you very much) and barely spoke. Someone pointed to a satellite crossing the sky. Another muttered that this place wouldn’t exist in five years. The fire crackled. We didn’t want to say it aloud, but we all knew it: we were trespassing on the edge of a dying sacred.

WHITE CROCS, BLUE SKY, AND THE PEAK THAT TRIED TO KILL US

Guadalupe Peak: 8.5 miles round trip, 3,092 feet of elevation gain, and one member of the team in white Crocs. We’re not proud. But we’re not ashamed either. The Crocs made it. One was held aloft at the summit like it was the torch of Liberty or maybe just a sweaty, rubber-souled middle finger to common sense.

It was stupid. It was divine. It was America.

We looked out across the high desert and saw a landscape they’ll carve up for permanent magnets and EV motors. From up there, it didn’t look like treasure. It looked like sacrifice.

RICHARD NIXON IN WHITE SANDS (LITERALLY)

It was supposed to be a quiet morning. A wander. A reprieve.

Instead, one of us stripped down, donned a Nixon mask, and marched into White Sands like a lunatic prophet.

The mask wasn’t planned. It was just there — in the back of the van like a cursed relic. So someone wore it. Because who better to haunt the ruins of American exceptionalism than Nixon himself, bare-assed and silent, trudging across gypsum dunes like a president returning to the scene of the crime.

We filmed it. Of course we did.

THE FINAL NIGHT: DREAMS AND BLOODY CROCS

By the time we reached Truth or Consequences, we were cooked. Sunburned. Stoned. Out of booze and out of hope. So we checked into Riverbend Hot Springs wearing the swagger of people who had seen too much and learned too little.

The robes were white. The Crocs were mismatched. The vibe was somewhere between spa retreat and cult suicide pact.

We floated in hot mineral springs beneath a sky so vast it felt like judgment. Across the river, two thousand green lights blinked back at us — frogs, drones, surveillance ghosts — we no longer cared. We were robe people now. Philosophers in exile. Burnouts on the brink.

Then one of us scaled a jagged pile of landscaping rocks. Declared it art. Posed for a photo. Fell.

Blood.

And laughter.
So much laughter.

We took photos of the blood. Photos of the Crocs. Photos of the Crocs next to the blood. Artifacts for the archive. Evidence of our descent.

But for a moment, we thought it was serious. No jokes. Just silence. A shadow slumped between rocks. Then a groan. We laughed again, but something had shifted.

We wandered the streets half-naked, half-deranged. Posed beside dumpsters like they were shrines. Tried to climb a streetlight. Failed. Fell again.

One of us disappeared into a hole by the riverbank. Just… gone.

We dragged them out by the sash of their robe.

We returned to our motel suite—bleeding, laughing, undefeated.

AND STILL, THE LAND WHISPERS

That night, we slept to the sound of wind and distant frogs and the creeping realization that we were being followed — not by agents or drones, but by the truth.

And the truth is this:

They are coming for the land.

They are coming for the minerals.

They are coming for the silence.

And if we don’t fight back — loudly, weirdly, together — they will take it all.

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From the bottom of Carlsbad Caverns to the top of the Guadeloupe Peak — we saw it all. Roswell. Cloudcroft. Lincoln. New Mexico made its mark, and we are all better for it.