I haven’t written many Blog Posts this year because I’ve been wrapped up in developing a book about places that you can only find in New Mexico and are compelling enough or important enough to warrant a drive across the country to check out. I hope to have the book finished by the end of the year.
But I did take a few days off this week to check out an Oscar Howe art exhibit in Brookings, South Dakota. On the way back, I hoped to hike to the top of South Dakota’s high point (Black Elk Peak) in the Black Hills. Unfortunately a heat dome parked itself over the Black Hills, and I decided that a 7-mile round trip hike in 90 degree heat would be a little too much for the dogs.
So I decided to head back to New Mexico and drove south through Hot Springs, South Dakota at the southern end of the Black Hills. Because I had been to the town’s huge hot spring swimming pool and to its incredible Mammoth Site several decades ago, I only planned to drive through town on my way home.
As I was driving through the old part of town, I noticed a gazebo surrounding a spring and a trail along a creek and thought that this would be a good place to walk the dogs. When I pulled into a parking area, I spotted a closed-down public stairway right in front of me. And this is where our brief wandering lesson begins.