falling in love

Sweetie wanted to do a write up on the hot springs adventure.

Editors note, it was at these very springs over 17 years ago i realized that this was the chick i was spending the rest of my life with (so gimmie some love points here). Her recount is below.

The san antonio hot springs in the jemez mountains of northern new mexico. at 3pm we decided to embark on the hike: a total of 10.4 miles roundtrip.  5 miles on the forest road which was closed due to so much snow.  another .2 mile scramble up to the springs.  then jump in the water, warm up, jump out and turn around to hike the 5.2 miles back to the truck, in the snow and the dark.  The now infamous 10 mile night hike in the snow.  We really want to soak in hot springs.  we are quite dedicated to it.  these hot springs were free and just in the mountain.  Naked hippies were in the springs when we arrived and left soon after we got there.  They wanted to still have some daylight to get started back.  they were cross country skiing.  We were just hiking.  They were from Germany, the whole family was naked in the hot springs.  weird!  Then they left and we got in.  We both warmed up and i massaged my sore feet.  Then we jumped out to dry off in the already below 20 degree weather which was dropping fast as the last of the sun left the sky.  The hike back, was dark and i only had my prescription sunglasses, so i had to hike with no glasses on so it wasn't so dark, just blurry.  We only had one headlamp, so only one of us got to see the trail.  We kept stepping off the packed trail of the cross country skiers and sinking into snow up to our knees.  When we got back to the truck it was after 9, close to 10.  I called my mom to tell her we were alive.  The whole way home we saw more elk than ever, huge bulls.  huge.  we made it home and drank hot chocolate and ate dinner.  what a day.