Sunday, July 29, 2007

Sheepherder's Bathtub: A Sunday Scribbling

Today’s Sunday Scribbling prompt is “Phenomenon.” A phenomenon is something that can be observed—a meteor, a hot spring and the scent of sage falls into this category. But I don’t think the ways of a human heart is a phenomenon. We don’t know what goes on inside. This is the first of a series of posts I hope to get around to writing, featuring my favorite hot springs… This hot spring is called the Sheepherder’s Bathtub; however, I never saw any sheep in the area even though there are plenty of sheep in the hills and mountains around this valley, up where the grass grows in abundance. Although I have many slides from my time in Idaho, but don’t have any of them copied digitally. I took the picture of the sheep several weeks ago when I was in Utah.
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It was just a hole in the ground nestled within some aspen and pines on the edge of a broad valley covered mostly with sage. You couldn’t even tell where it was unless you were right on it. The only sign that there was something special about this place was a pull off from the highway, just large enough for a few cars to park, and a dirt path that ran through the sage to a place the locals called the Sheepherder’s Bathtub. As hot springs go it wasn’t much, twenty, maybe thirty feet in diameter and three or so feet deep, but filled with very warm water with just a hint of sulfur. I learned about it from a local, the first summer I directed a nearby camp. And for two summers, the spring served as my own private retreat. I never saw another soul there except for those I invited. Summer twilight last late into the night in Central Idaho and I’d often head to the tub around 10 PM, just as light began to fade in the valley. For an hour or so I’d lay in the 100 degree water, the back of my head resting on rocks, watching the summer stars emerge as I soaked my troubles away.

I visited the tub one last time the end of August 1990. It had been raining for nearly a week, which brought out the scent of sage. Rachel’s sister, with whom I’d enjoyed a whirlwind romance that summer, was with me. We soaked in nature’s own hot water and talked till midnight, observing the movement of the stars and watching for meteors. In the high mountains, far from city lights, meteors are more vivid. Each time one streaked across the sky, we’d make a wish. I don’t know what she wished for. You can’t tell what you wish for, or it won’t come true, or so some say. Looking back, it didn’t matter. I kept my wishes a secret and they still didn’t come true.

The next afternoon we hugged in the camp’s parking lot and then got into our cars and drove off. I stopped after crossing the plank bridge over a fork of the Wood River to walk back and lock the gate, my last responsibility for the summer. Leah kept going; we never saw each other again. I think it was C. S. Lewis who said we’ll spend a good part of eternity thanking God for prayers not answered. Maybe so, but at the moment you realize a dream is lost, you feel as chilled as I did in the breeze the evening before. Prune-liked and water-logged when we finally crawled out of the warm water, we were quickly cooled by the wind and the night air and held each other close for warmth as we walked through the sage and back to the car.

27 comments:

  1. Sage, you really do need to write a book. This is beautiful.

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  2. Hotsprings are one of the things I love about the Idaho / Montana area. We visited different, hidden hotsprings all of the time. They are little enclaves of paradise.

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  3. Hello, Michele sent me today.

    What a lovely entry, I could feel the water and the cool wind.

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  4. thank you so much for your portrait of this lovely experience,, it was as if i was right there.....

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  5. Hi. I wanted to thank you for visiting my blog.

    Nice post. I've never seen hotsprings. They don't occur where I'm from. It was as if I was there for a moment. Nice.

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  6. Reading this post brought down my blood pressure (not that it's high); just the way you described everything, it brought me peace.

    Once you click on the photo and get the big picture, it's amazing.

    And the romance...how sweet is was.

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  7. There is so mucn natural beauty is this part of the country. I will have to visit there sometime, seeing as it is in my neck of the woods.

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  8. A girl dumped you?!? Unbelievable.

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  9. Kenju, thanks.

    Dawn, Having spent two summers in Idaho and living in Western Nevada (the back side of the Sierra's are filled with hot springs), I've come to cherish them.

    Missmeliss & Paisley, thanks.

    Fab, Thanks for visiting--to have hot springs you generally have to have geologically unstable ground!

    Scarlet, it was, yes...

    Kevin, relative speaking, in your neck of the woods, but I bet you'd pass a 100 hot springs getting there, as Dawn pointed out, Idaho is filled with them.

    Murf, yeah, it has happened, and more than once.

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  10. It wasn't because you called her 'stupid', was it? ;-)

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  11. NO, and she wasn't a pothead either. If you must know, she went back to her fiance with whom she'd broken up with earlier that summer.

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  12. One sign that I've been reading your blog for a long time is that when I hear you say summer romance in the middle of the blog, all I can think of for the rest of the entry is wondering what Murf is going to say.

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  13. Sage, of course I must know. :-)

    Gotta hate rebounds. I don't think she's worthy of timeline placement.

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  14. I relished reading this sunday musings. One of the best I must say.

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  15. Ed, you know, I wonder that when I'm writing them. I've also started using different names that have a reference to the person's real name. If Murf decides she want's to put in some time in the Hebrew Scriptures, she'd be able to get the right name...

    Murf, 4 hot weeks in August (but you really don't have Hot August Nights in the mountains of Idaho)

    Gautami, thanks!

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  16. How do you know I haven't read the Hebrew Scriptures? :-)

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  17. very nice :)

    I use wordpress so it wouldn't work for you, but there are great ones out there for blogger and all you do is copy and paste over the old.

    Now if you want to switch to wordpress (free or hosted)...and you would probably like it...then happy to help set that up.

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  18. Sounds like a great place to be. Warm water, soaking our troubles away.

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  19. natural hot springs are wonderful places to spend some time . . . is it just me, or do a lot of Sage's nature stories include tales of whirlwind romance and love unrequited?

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  20. Murf: WRONG

    Kontan, thanks for the offer. I need to experiement more, I'm not sure if I'd like Wordpress better or not, but you do have some nice features on your page

    Thanks Paul.

    Diane, How shall I answer thee, sometimes I was the unrequitee, sometimes the unrequiter... I should point out that all these stories are almost (or more than) two decades old.

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  21. So I'll guess...was it "Dinah"? (Dee-nah)?

    Oh and nice story....now that I'm staring down the barrel of 40 for 2 more weeks, I'm fondly remembering my summer romances past....

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  22. Ms. non-angel, WRONG! I'd thought you'd looked it up!

    BTW, what is your birthday? I may have it somewhere but if you tell me it'll save me the trouble of finding it. Maybe I should throw another blog party.

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  23. As if you would admit to it if I was right. Have you ever dated a Deborah?

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  24. "scent of sage"

    so that's how you came by your blog name!

    love it!! :o)

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  25. August 20. I don't celebrate though because some nasty stuff happened on August 19 a few years ago and it isn't "appropriate" to celebrate...besides I ain't handling this well...I think next year I'll turn 39, and try to get down to 1. At least I'll eventually start "acting my age" again...I think that this year I may allow some fun though...we'll see.

    OK, how about Rebekah?

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