Wilbur Hot Springs

In a rustic bathhouse beside a creek, I dipped my big toe into three rectangular pools, testing the different temperatures before settling into a soothing 98-degree bath. I took a deep breath and stretched out in the silky pea-green water, dropping my head back and exhaling a month's worth of tension. One end of the A-frame bathhouse was open to the outdoors, exposing a dense evergreen forest that covered the hill above the natural hot springs.

I'm getting myself in really hot water. First I got coated in mud hip-deep. Then I lay about indulgently for an eternity. Then I splashed about in a mini-water park. Now I'm sliding into scalding water to lie about some more. After that, I'll rest again. This wholly un-Puritan episode is by design.

Since time immemorial, superheated steam has risen through the mantle of the Earth, collecting sulfur and other minerals and condensing into water that bubbles to the surface in a lush crease of California's coastal range. Patwin Indians were among the first to seek out the hot springs -- known then, it is believed, as Yawisel, today as Wilbur Hot Springs.

Since time immemorial, superheated steam has risen through the mantle of the Earth, collecting sulfur and other minerals and condensing into water that bubbles to the surface in a lush crease of California's coastal range. Patwin Indians were among the first to seek out the hot springs -- known then, it is believed, as Yawisel, today as Wilbur Hot Springs.

I'm getting myself in really hot water. First I got coated in mud hip-deep. Then I lay about indulgently for an eternity. Then I splashed about in a mini-water park. Now I'm sliding into scalding water to lie about some more. After that, I'll rest again. This wholly un-Puritan episode is by design.

When we talk about the energy shortage, we aren't talking about the earth as a whole. We are talking only about the foreseeable exhaustion of those energy sources we have learned to tap easily and efficiently, principal among them being oil, natural gas and coal. 12p,10,,1 Alternative Shelter There are others, at least four of them inexhaustible in terms of humanity.

In a rustic bathhouse beside a creek, I dipped my big toe into three rectangular pools, testing the different temperatures before settling into a soothing 98-degree bath. I took a deep breath and stretched out in the silky pea-green water, dropping my head back and exhaling a month's worth of tension. One end of the A-frame bathhouse was open to the outdoors, exposing a dense evergreen forest that covered the hill above the natural hot springs.