Snively Hot Springs

In the beginning, it was as simple as inviting Alaina to Snively Hot Springs. After limited communication and planning, we decide to head out and meet at the spring. After arriving first to the Owyhee State Park nature preserve, I learn that the drastically delayed arrival time on Alaina's end was to ensure that I had a decent meal after a long day.

But little did she know, as she was approaching Snively with two delicious bacon burgers, that there had been alignments being made within the stars. About fifteen minutes before she got there, I met with a wonderful, trustworthy traveling merchant named Shaggy. As a more experienced vagrant than I, Shaggy was quick to conversation and immediately cut through the social tension. He offered to show me his wares and casually asked if I would like to purchase some illicit substances from him. As I fumbled around in the critical thinking portion of my brain, I told him I was meeting someone and would have to get back to him.

Seemingly an eon later, Alaina finally arrives with provisions and buggy bands. Instead of waiting for a standard "oh hey, it's been a minute, how are you," I bound up to her car as she opened the door and I yell at her that she has an important choice to make.

She answered in a way that made the natural spirits of the canyon jump for joy. Yes. We are buying and taking acid from this totally trustworthy drug dealer / crystal merchant named Shaggy. So almost within five minutes of her arrival, we were letting these delicious little pyramid-shaped gel tabs dissolve under our tongues. After talking with Shaggy and his friends for a few minutes, we said goodbye.

We decided that we had missed each other for a bit, and decided that before the LSD kicked in we should go into the van and make loud and aggressive animal sounds for a ritual reacquaintance ceremony.

Unfortunately we seemed to not see, acknowledge, or seemingly understand that there was a crowd of people directly outside the van in the parking lot.

We relax in the springs and caught up for a bit. A few Twisted Teas and half a bacon burger made the next few hours a magical experience. We met some lively characters and reconnected with Shaggy and his troupe. Full, robust conversations of satellites and a black hole of a conversationalist that really had it out for Britain for some reason. This night was looking up.

After a second — but much longer — reacquaintance ritual, complete with animal sounds and van noises, we once again realized that there was a group of people hanging out in front of the van. For like two hours.

We had spent many moons away — seemingly the entire population of the hot springs had changed. From other people who had browsed through Shaggy's wares, to weird uncomfortable old guys dancing for a group of older teens. Once again the night was flowing well. We do a few river plunges and join in conversation with the fellow travelers.

This came to a halt after one too many subtle offers of crazy hot springs sex with strangers — primarily from overweight "Merica" kind of people. One name was Billy. Billy was a good dude. Billy's friend was not a good dude. Although he did have a cool black light, a glowy stick he had carved, and a pipe he had made that he was adamant about showing off. We decided to call it a night.

We traverse the trail of overgrown weeds and divots in the dark back to the van. Due to Billy's friend not being a friendly vibe, we drive down the road a bit to find camp. Alaina introduces me to chocolate hazelnut uncrustable sandwiches. The box did not last long. After being chased out of the springs and the come-down headache kicking in, we laid, trying to sleep for almost the entire night. At about 7am we are able to drive back to the proper spot and get a few hours of sleep.

We wake up at 10:30am. We are both astonished at the fact that we feel great. After a check-in with the people in town, we decide to stay another night. We spend our morning walking up the river on a side quest in our adventure. I show Alaina amazing campgrounds that the forest service is shutting down due to people treating the nature poorly. Sad face.

So after a horrific sunburn and a good-spirited check-in with the hot springs, I convince Alaina that she has to jump off a cliff. We drive up to the Owyhee Lake, climb down and up some rocky rocks to a great jumping spot. Not even a countdown. Full send — we jump the 30-foot drop down into the lake. Twice.

After some reflection and calming lake sounds, we noticed that we had extended our adventure ill-prepared. Little water. 100 degrees outside. Running on three hours of sleep. And the uncrustables were gone. We find a three-dollar bag of ice at the Indian Creek campground that appears to run on an honor system. We collect our ice, chill our drops of water, and drive back to the springs. I have become a lobster.

We lay in the van to escape the sun for a few. I get a quick power nap in, waking up in the van minus an Alaina. I trudge down to the spring to find her sitting with our good old friend — the man, the myth, the legend himself. The mystical traveling merchant. Shaggy.

We regroup and decide that we must travel forth to town for provisions and nourishment. We say farewell to Shaggy with the intention of returning to purchase some of his non-smokable rocks and crystals.

We travel to the outskirts of Nyssa, Oregon. We stop at a deceivingly small-looking corner store. We go inside to find it's a complete mini market for weary travelers such as ourselves. We must have arrived on a good day — the cutie behind the counter takes us out back to a bar with live music happening. We enjoy an amber ale, a delightfully delicious huckleberry cider, and some thick ass buffalo burgers. A grand old time and the performer was surprisingly a fantastic vocalist. We laughed, we ate, we drank.

We get some much-needed water and more ice and make our way back to the springs. We decide that the drive back was another good time for a reacquaintance ritual. So we pull off to the side of the road. This was unfortunately interrupted before completion of said ritual.

We look up and see a sheriff drive by and look directly at us. We all three make wonderfully uncomfortable eye contact. The officer was kind as he let us get situated before approaching our vehicle. I had been baking in the sun for two straight days, but his face was more red than mine.

He took it in good stride and let us get on our way. As we're getting situated, it's as if Shaggy heard the slight crisp slips of cash Alaina had stopped for. He is pulling up to the springs right behind us. After bartering for rocks and more drugs, we walk away with more LSD, some dinosaur bones, and crystals. Shaggy had come through again.

This already being quite an adventurous day, we take our medicine and decide to have a relaxing night. Or so we thought.

As the sun passed over us and nestled behind the cliffs, we are laughing, talking, and chilling with a momentous music battle between alternative rock and Hispanic mariachi. As the springs cleared out, the more the night was flowing. It's dark. Hard to see at this point. A party, frat-style dude named Rick James was keeping it lively.

But from up the river, we see light coming our way. Once again — it's the middle of the night, it's dark. But here comes two people coming down the river in a raft. Headlamps lit, they expertly docked at the springs. These guys were genuine river people.

The seemingly alpha member of the river people is wielding a hand-carved staff with a broken, re-heat-tempered shovel head that looked like it had taken a few lives. The man starts to dig, cut, and cultivate into the land around the springs with this tool. His process was fascinating — he was ripping and lifting out chunks of land with his bare hands. Remarkably unapproachable, and rolling on something hard. Others there were off put and intimidated. But he didn't seem to mind others poking fun and watching him. This dude was working hard. Full on changing the landscape right before our eyes.

Rick James was heckling the guy a bit much, so I wanted to try to shift the mood from creepy Deliverance-style river people to chill vibes. I go up to this man and compliment him on his handmade staff and tool. He even lets me hold it. I ask him what he is doing, and in between the clear lapses of lucidity in this man, he explains: earlier in the day, a family was trying to get down into the hot springs but one of them had a wheelchair. So he wanted to create a ramp and space for anyone needing a wheelchair to have access to the springs.

It got interesting as he started to open up. His name was Benjamin. He told me I'll end up living in Oregon by 2030 and that he is running for governor then and that I should vote for him.

This had been the maximum amount of fun that we could have had with river person Benjamin. So we said our goodbyes and left Benjamin to Rick James. Alaina and I take a walk to cool off into the night and stop to see the origin point of the hot springs.

We get back to the van. We hunker down with snacks and wonderful memories of the past few days. And I start working on writing down what could be — an .