A Brief Lesson in Wandering

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.

I wrote The Gentle Art of Wandering over ten years ago with the idea that if someone adopts the mindset of wandering that they could make amazing discoveries every time they stepped out the door. Wandering quite simply is allowing yourself to see and then letting what you see guide you on where you go.

One of the concepts in the book is what I referred to as Search Image. Search Image begins by being present and aware of the world around you and then connecting that awareness to all of the knowledge and experience that lies within you. It’s when you make these connections that you start to make discoveries. The more interests and knowledge that you have the more connections and discoveries that you make. It becomes something you can’t help; it just happens.

When I last went through Hot Springs almost 30 years ago, I didn’t have any awareness of public stairways and never noticed any stairways in the town. Since becoming aware of stairways, I automatically spot them and have now climbed stairs in over 20 states.

I was totally shocked when I saw the closed-down stairway and immediately climbed over the barrier to climb the stairs and count the steps. This particular stairway is in very poor shape and rightfully closed, but it does have 126 steps.

We then walked along the trail to the gazebo, that got us to stop in the first place, and passed a small waterfall along the way. The spring turned out to be a cold water mineral spring. Many people claim that the spring’s water has health benefits.

While on the walk we did spot some old buildings that were once hot spring spas, and better yet, we saw another stairway on the other side of the road. Needless to say, we went over to that stairway and climbed it to the top. That stairway had 123 steps and led to an old sandstone school building. The old part of Hot Springs is one red/brown sandstone building after another.

Just as we thought that we were ready to leave town, we spotted another and incredibly grand stairway. That stairway had 140 steps and led to a Veterans Administration campus.

For all I know, there could be more stairways to discover in Hot Springs. Unfortunately, it was time to go. But I wouldn’t have spotted the three stairways that I did climb if I didn’t have the mindset of wandering ingrained into me. And if you like to climb public stairways, you can add the Hot Springs stairs to your Black Hills trip.