Adventure 339: Faywood Hot Springs

This alien greets visitors.

We're wandering the Southern part of New Mexico once again. It's Deja Vu. We're parked in the same slot we had two years ago, and although the owners claim improvements, they aren't really visible. Regardless, Faywood is still a fabulous, rustic hot spring. Carved amidst the pale waist high brush grass, scrubby mesquite trees, intermittent tufts of soaptree yucca cactus, and more rock than you can imagine, the springs has four well maintained concrete tub areas. Each area has a very hot, hot, and cool pool. The owners empty and clean the tubs daily. There are three cabins for rent, several tent sites, and twenty RV sites. It's a place a person has to want to get to, but if tubbing in your birthday suit (optional) appeals to you, by all means head this way. We found it two years ago, and are taking a one day stopover this year on our way to Big Bend National Park. Perhaps the best part of the experience is soaking in the tubs at night. Faywood is just about a mile high, so with the absence of most of the light pollution, even the naked eye can see several constellations. If we owned a set of night binoculars, we could see even more. Just imagine sitting up to your neck in comfortable hot water breathing fresh, cool air, and gazing up at stars, satellites, and airplanes. In the cool air the jet wash from the planes trails like gases comets. Who knows if we'll ever come this way again, but both experiences have  had the effect of reminding us that we're mere specks in the universe. Like I said, "Humility is good." We head to Las Cruces, NM tomorrow for a couple of days. We'll resupply, explore a little bit of the Organ Mountains, and prepare to enter the wilderness for five nights at Big Bend where we won't have any power and only the water we bring with us. Should be fun, and in terms of adventure another way to experience a life that is good.

 At our age, we just check our egos at the gate.

Art shot of the day: Light, pouring over the edge of the pool side.

 This little honey bee is a permanent fixture in one of the tub areas.

 The view from our front window.

 The far tub is the very hot; the middle, the cool, and Judy's enjoying the hot.

 Our view this morning as we packed up.

 The very hot pool I enjoyed this morning.

 Here's looking at me, kid.

 Here's looking the other way. Miles and miles....