Christmas in Ft Davis

Christmas in Ft Davis
Originally uploaded by neillsmth.

This picture was taken from the driveway, about 10 feet down the hill. The driveway continues down to the road about 40 feet lower and 200 feet away. The rocks are part of a wall that runs West and hides the tunnel from the bunker. The trailers are up behind the bunker and the crain is out front ready to work.

Sagebrush Santa

Made from tumblweeds and cotton.
This is one of the old store fronts in "downtown" Ft Davis.

Paint test

DSCF0001.JPG copy
Originally uploaded by neillsmth.

Compare this with the artists remdering below. The color will be that between the window and door. The band around the bottom will be tinted more red.

ft davis art

ft davis art
Originally uploaded by neillsmth.

A visiting artist painted this and has it in a gallery in Austin. Looks a lot like the bunker but I'm sure its not. Still neat though. I will wait til we move in and hang the original on the wall

Working Inside

Drove out Thanksgiving night to wire the bedroom and mount the service panel. Many tight fits and small problems but we got it done and headed back Sat. night to beat the traffic. The service panel was made for underground service and I had to modify it slightly to accept overhead feed. The panel box only cost 23.00 on e-bay (thirty one to ship) but it is an all in one and worth much more. The next trip we will complete the wiring and all that will be left is installing the kitchen cabinets.

Bunker Roof

The roof was built up by adding concrete blocks at the corners and metal trusses for spanish tile mansard. The steel ladder leaning against the back wall is the ladder from the hatch.

The bedroom

Bringing Home the Silver Twinkie

Because of the cold weather and snow we took a quick trip Sat to pick up the Airstream. It's been sitting there two years so I had to do a little maintenance to get it off the hill. The batteries were up because of the solar panels and I found THE problem with the air bags (the vent line was plugged by some sort of varmit). I did discover a flat tire and that is a job. It did have to be a rear inner. That fixed we watched the Longhorns beat O State in a very exciting game and spent another night in the bunker.
The trip back to Austin was uneventful. A lot of deer hunters on the road but the Moho ran well untill about 50 mles out. Plugged fuel filter I guess. It ran worse and worse the rest of the trip and backing it into the back yard was tricky because it was running so bad. Now I have to fix it before I can use it.

First nighter

Spent the first night in the bunker. Very quet.
The weather changed quickly this weekend. No snow that we know of but the temp dropped to 28 with a high in the 30's. All that concrete is like a big heatsink and the inside stays pretty constant. We didn't winterize the airstream though so that may be a problem. I think I'll go get it Saturday. All of the electrical will go in Thanksgiving and the plumbing is finished so it will be liveable. The addition will be started in the spring.

The Bunker

The Bunker
Originally uploaded by neillsmth.

The bunker will stay this way until the addition is built. You can see how thick the walls are by noting te door return. Three feet thick, solid concrete. There will be a set of sprial stairs leading up to the roof making the whole roof a sun deck. It will be a very good place for Mexican martinis. Paint will go on next spring, I have enough that we had to put 16 buckets under the bed and make end tables out of 4 more.

Panorama

Here is a view looking South. Although this picture was taken from the roof the same view can be seen from the porch. The roof will be a sun deck accessed by a spiral stair from the courtyard. The roof is 18" thick concrete.

As found

LONE STAR BUNKER

In the West Texas mountains above Fort Davis, Texas, stands a concrete bunker that had been abandoned for 25 years. I am in the process of making it a home. Cutting doors and windows into 2ft thick concrete walls is difficult, very difficult but it's done. My wife has developed a relationship with a jack hammer and I found a chainsaw that will cut 14" deep and walk down the wall at an inch a minute. I'll leave it to you to figure out how many inches are involved.

Barbara and I had spent some time looking at property in Fort Davis, Texas, a small town in the mountains North of the Big Bend National Park. We live in Austin so the further from civilization the better. I do mean further! We drive six and a half hours to get there so we can work a day and a half. So far we have worked about 45 days (in a two year period). The time spent together is nice though and we while away the hours listening to CD's (no radio West of Junction).

We found the bunker by accident. We had flown in to Midland/Odessa and driven the 2.5 hours to Fort Davis to meet with a realestate lady who knew the territory. She took us to all of the areas which are being developed and although they were nice they didn't have that appeal that would hook us. Two days of looking drew no results so we headed back to the airport for the flight back to Austin. We stopped for dinner in Odessa. On the way in I grabbed a "thrifty nickle" ad paper just to look at while we waited for the enchiladas. On the front page in the upper left corner was an ad for a couple of acres and a structure back in Fort Davis. I tried to call by got no answer so it was back to Austin.

Several days later I got the owner on the phone and we made plans to go back and take a look. First problem; the owner, a Philipino lady was giving directions to a half deaf Texan so all I got was "structure, and Dolores mountain; next was to figure out what a structure was. So another trip and a day of search. We found the mountain (how can you hide one?) and drove past this big concrete bunker several times befor we figured out that it was indeed a structure. No windows, doors or ventalation (next discovery, an air shaft that ran some 50' to a cliff) half buried, and a steel hatch on the roof. The hatch was 32X32 and a steel box ran down through the interior and through the floor to the tunnel that ran to the cliff. At floor level was a steel door with dogs on it like ships have. I was the first to go down, but that's another story.