Into Hot Waters...
April 3rd in the morning at Spencer Hot-spring in Nevada.
What a night, windy at times, then snowing, flurry like. I'm now sitting in the hot-tub, after setting up tent and sleeping-quarter, as in inflating the mat and roll-out sleeping-bag and all the goods, there is another couple in the tub, sliding in, after asking them if they mind that I join the tub, I notice that the water is not as hot as it used to be. These bustards were hugging the inlet so good that almost not enough hot water got to me. I'm sitting in there with a bit of a chill, think to myself that this water was never that cold before, even though the guy was telling me the valve is fully open. Only when they make moves I felt a stream of hot flowing over my body. It was an odd situation, the two where just whispering to each other, all lovy dovy and did not strike-up a conversation with me. Many times I had great conversation with all kinds of strangers, not tonight and that is fine too, I'm just not warming up, I have snow on my head, its windy as a motherfucker and I had to hang in there. Finally they left the pool and I could hug that darn inlet, ahhh finally warming-up. The Moon is showing his half face in between the clouds and many stars were peaking through too, an amazing sky would there be no clouds, but tonight is different. Another flurry of snow is drifting by, wind is howling over an open pipe somewhere making a sound like if you blow over a bottle-rim, and another noise is the blowing through the grass. I'm finally hot in here, love it.
I think I'm all pruned-up, lets get out of here, its time to eat some dinner, lets see what's in the cooler. The two "Bratwürste" swiss for brats , that have been froozen for who-knows-for-how-long are defrosted and need to be eaten, I also grabbed a yogurt container full of cooked noodles out of the fridge at home, leftover from my farewell dinner on Tuesday eveing, then I bought a bag with mixed vegetable. With that in mind I started up the stove, this thing needs some special love to get going, poor Stuart couldn't get her going on his last camping trip, he missed the crucial part of my instruction, you have to massage the rubber-seal from the prime-pump before attempting to pump-up the pressure. After doing that I get her fired-up in no time. A little bit of water to heat-up the sausages, or brats as I called them before, ad some hot-sauce, the veggies and last the noodles. Before eating I added some Creole mustard and Wasaby Mayonnaise, done. With that I enjoyed the beer that I bought in Austin, Nevada, the last town before this adventure. Luckily this was a phase of the weather that was calm, the next storm is rolling in and I bundle-up in the tent after finish-up eating and cleaning the dishes. In the tent I'm writing my 3 o'clock blog into the Palm Pilot with the cord-less keyboard, glad I bought this whole set-up. Strong winds again, I hear snow pounding onto the tent. The temperature outside is 36 F, it was 40 when I got here, it's gonna be a cold night, a challenge to stay warm. Fist I wear my power-fleace long under-wear, them the sleeping-bag-liner, a fleace sleeping-bag, the "real" sleepeing-bag as a cover and the hood from my green top to cover my head. I read for some time, it's really wild outside, snowing hard and the wind is strong. I remember a night, October 9th 2000, when I was here at this place with my swiss friend Andy Schlegel, there was a storm that night, lightning, rain and gale-force winds that the two of us almost ended up on top of each other because the tentwalls were caving in from the strong wind, but it did not end up like in the movie "Brokebride Mountain", even though in the morning we had this gay moment when a lady that was at the springs too had some butterfly-wings with her, you know the ones you strap on the back of your kid, she wanted us to wear them to take some pictures, I have to go and find the pictures she took with my first digital camera. I can't remember how many times I have been to these springs here, Angelika Rappe introduced me to this place, maybe in 1996 or so, with Herman Eppinghaus, his son and his best buddy, we're all driving to Moab, UT for some mountain-biking. A perfect spot to spend the night here, it's almost halfway from Berkeley to Moab.
I fall asleep with no problem, kind of like getting lulled into it, with all this wind and pinging of the snow onto the tent-walls. I was thinking about sharing this moment with a women and was going through my list to see who would do this with me, or better who would go through something like that with me? It's that fine line of doing something like this with a women I like and then that women might not like doing such crazy things, and when would I find the time to write all these stories down, then again I'm not looking for one, but it would be nice to share these moments with someone special.
I had wild dreams, of corse by now I can't rememeber anything clearly, but there where lots of people, friends and strangers, like Michael Streichsbier throwing something at his boss at a parade like situation, then this guy comes over to me and kicks me for it, or trying anyway, all that while a parade was going on, bizarre, lots of knights on horses with tall spears, towering over the crowds, also, I lived in some really cool apartments, at one point of time I was hugging a strange naked women, we just giggled, lots more vivid images of places and people. I wake-up because I have to go pee like a race-horse, it is pitch dark out, I unzip the tent and find the whole landscape in white, the tent had a good layer of snow on it and that is why it was so dark when I opened my eyes. I go and relieve myself by the nearby bush and then back to dream-land, the temperature is 27F, my sleeping-bag still warm, and all is well.
In the morning I take peak out of the tent, looks like the other couple is gone, it's just after 8 and time for another soak. I make some tea with the water I boiled last night, while I had the stove going, and had it stored in the thermos. Grabbed both cameras and head over to the pool. Here is what it looks like on the morning of April 3rd 2009.
Picture of Honda and tent
Picture of Landscape
Picture of pool
Picture of me in pool
The water was much hotter this morning, that's the way I remember this place, steaming water, perfect. More patches of blue sky and another storm is dumping snow in the nearby mountains, stark land all around me. Now it's time for a breakfast, I'm hungry once more. I prepare a müeslie, another swiss for yogurt, granola, a fresh cut apple and banana. I like my granola soggy and so I start cleaning-up the tent, of course right then the next snow flurry arrives and I have to battle winds from different directions to get the tent all rolled-up and packet away. By the time I'm done with that I'm almost cold again, so I sit in the car start the engine to get some heat, please don't tell anyone, I hate when people warm-up the car instead of driving of, but I wanted to write this little story here and for that I need some warmth. The Palm Pilot and the keyboard are not waterproof like the one camera I have, otherwise I be sitting you know where to warm-up again.