This past weekend I went northeast to Wilbur Hot Springs. The hot sulphur waters are relaxing, the countryside is beautiful, it’s very quiet. There are no phones or TVs. It's very quiet. It's a different kind of hotel. The Hotel is old, first built in 1865. It has a huge sweeping screened porch with tables and common rooms are big with tables, couches, musical instruments, a pool table and games. There is a library with National Geographic magazines from the 1950s!
The main attraction of the place is the hot springs. There are three soaking pools filled with stinky hot sulphur water. Pools are open all day and night. Friday night we were up in the middle of the night and spent a nice time soaking in the pools and hanging out in the library. I love the calmness of the dead of night.
On Saturday we hiked into the canyon on some trails. There are lots of fallen down buildings - old farmsteads and rusting mining equipment. There are various sulphur springs just oozing out of the ground. One spring has a huge obelisk build up around it, so that at one time, hot water from the geyser, spurted out. The geyser still erupts, but the cement structure is eroding away. I was lucky enough to be passing by when the geyser was erupting and I climbed on top to see why it wasn't coming out the top. It was pretty dangerous and exciting to be on top of this boiling hot erupting geyser. I didn't get burned from the water (only the sun and sulphur).
We hiked to the top of a ridge. This time cows were all over the place and we must have freaked them out because they were bellowing alarm cries. The sun was shining, a light wind was blowing, all was quiet for the electrical crack of overhead wires. We hiked along a salt creek looking for interesting bits of shard and found a couple of old graves from the mid 1850's. The earth had sunk into the graves, the old oak trees roots were bare. Walking back I took my shoes off and walked in the cold stream. I was reminded of another stream walk. Merritt and I were traveling in southern brazil and went to some park to look at waterfalls. The stream that fed them became very wide and shallow at one point, so we took our shoes off and walked down it. It was the wide flat part between two falls. The water that was running over our feet had just fallen 60 feet and was about to fall another 20 or so. Erosion. Change by constant pressure. I found out orchids flower only when they are stressed. Interesting... Do people change only when there is pressure?
Back to waxing Wilbur. Since the weather was still cool, the swimming pool was filled with warm sulphur mineral water. It was milder than the soaking pools and so relaxing. I spent most of my time balanced on two wooden blocks floating, suspended in the pool. It was exquisite. Floating suspended in a slippery green fluid. I'd get out of the pools all hot and steam off in the cool wind. It was a great weekend.
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