Hangin’ with the Banks

We move East at a good clip. Through and past Phoenix, and up the mountains on the other side as we wanted to take a route other than Interstate to our next destination. It wasn’t even a new area we were traveling – we did it last year – but at least it wasn’t Interstate for 10 hours. We drove until just before sunset, settling on a dirt road that came to or rescue last year. Nothing out of the ordinary happened the rest of the night, or through the following morning as we departed to continue East a few more hours to meet up with Silver City, then South to Faywood Hotsprings… our ultimate destination for the upcoming week.

Yea, we have been to Faywood Hotsprings before. Twice actually. This wasn’t a new adventure to us other than we made sure to invite a couple that we have bumped into numerous times in the past couple years but hadn’t really had the opportunity to get to know; Beth and Taylor Banks of The Learning Banks.

Each evening we would get together after work to get to know each other over some grub. I believe there was some conspiracy to get me to eat some seriously questionable foods by all, but I made it through the week without. I stood my ground and stuck to the chicken, sausages, and good old American veggies while they ate things like salted, petrified, duck eggs.

Dinner was followed by an after-dark soak in the springs, no matter how cold the air was, and it got cold. As if the gods were mocking us, it was colder in New Mexico than it was in Washington for a few of the days. Brutal cold… like into the single digits cold in the mornings. While it made some hours over night and the early mornings quite harsh, it did make the soaks that much more enjoyable. For five nights, that was our life; work, socialize, eat, soak, sleep. Sometimes we would even soak in the mornings, or during lunch. Basically, we soaked as often as we could, some more than others. Not a bad way to spend a work week, and to get to know some great new friends.