Today, I started watching Easy Rider as a memorial to Dennis Hopper who died last week. I have been missing California a lot, and really enjoyed the scenery as they ride east from LA. While they're at the commune, they walk to a hot spring, an abandoned spa that I have visited. It was way cool to see a place I've been in a movie.
Several years ago, I was on my way to Death Valley with three other Sierra Club members for a week of hiking and sightseeing in the lowest place in the US. Our driver knew of a hot spring we could stop at on our way south from the SF Bay area. Of course we all agreed to make the stop. We arrived at a small turnoff from a dirt road, and left the van there. We clambered down a woodsy slope and at the bottom found an old limestone tub built into the side of the hill, with a sulphur spring filling it. Many meters below, we could hear the water of a stream crashing over the rocks. It was a clear night, we were far from city lights and the sky was filled with stars we never get to see on the coast. It was a wonderful sensual experience and one I know I'll never forget. However, as my friends and I were enjoying the pure California-ness of soaking in a sulphur tub in a 19th century resort, our van was being robbed and all of our equipment for the following week's trip through Death Valley was stolen.
We had no real choice but to return home and blow off that trip. There was an up-side to my return, though. I got to walk across the Bay Bridge, a once in a life time experience, with a new lover.
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