Faywood Hot Springs
No cellphone signal. No Wi-Fi. Peacocks that take daily strolls right outside your RV. The distant howls of coyotes. I’m talking about Faywood Hot Springs, a place where nature and spa-like relaxation meet. As one man we met had said, you could be soaking in one of the thermal springs, and there could be a rattlesnake just a few feet away!
Faywood Hot Springs, located in southwestern New Mexico, consists of several natural, geothermal mineral water baths. Many claim the hot pools to have healthful and rejuvenating properties – which brings in health enthusiasts from all over.
My family and I stayed at Faywood Hot Springs for a week. It was our third time visiting the springs.
During the day, I caught up on schoolwork and photographed wildlife (peacocks, birds, and cute cats).
After dinner, though, I’d join my parents in the hot pools and gaze up at the stars. It’s quite an interesting experience to be able to soak in a geothermal spring, see the Milky Way right above you, and listen to a few older guys talk about UFOs, aliens, and secrets the government and CIA don’t want you to know.
I’d say I quite enjoyed my time at Faywood, but I’m 100% positive that my parents liked it even more than I did. Their daily routine went exactly like this: Wake up. Eat. Soak. Eat. Soak. Eat. Soak. Sleep. Repeat. I’m not kidding. That week, both my parents (my dad especially) spent more time in the water than out.
In case you’re wondering, my dad and I did have work we had to take care of which required the use of cellular service. We found that we could get a sporadic two bars of signal atop a hill just a short walk from the hot springs. In fact, my dad named one of the benches up on the hill “AT&T bench” since we usually sat or stood around that bench while trying (usually in vain) to get a signal.
City of Rocks State Park
Just a ten minute drive away from Faywood Hot Springs lies City of Rocks State Park. Although the campground there doesn’t have a sewer connection for our RV (meaning we can’t stay very long before our black tank overfills and sewer erupts from the toilet), and like at Faywood, doesn’t have any cellphone signal or Wi-Fi; I’d say it’s my favorite campground in our whole eighteen-month long RV journey so far.
Caused by a violent volcanic eruption many, many years ago followed by weathering and erosion, City of Rocks State Park is known and visited for it’s large rock formations. Believe it or not, you can even get an RV spot nestled in between the giant boulders of rock.
I consider City of Rocks a natural playground. It’s exciting to climb up hunks of rock in various shapes and sizes. If you use your imagination, you’ll find pictures in the various formations – bells, people, and maybe even a resting dragon.
City of Rocks State Park is also a recognized dark sky site. One chilly night, after a dinner of steaming Nepali dal bhat, my dad took one of my younger sisters and I on a nighttime bike ride through the park and up a hill to do a bit of stargazing. After pointing out several constellations, stars, and the Andromeda Galaxy (the closest major galaxy to the Milky Way), we proceeded to ride back to our RV before the desert temperature could drop even further. On our ride home in the dark, I got to experience the “thrill” of having my breaks give out as I rode at 20 (it felt like 120!) miles an hour down a hill with an exceptionally steep slope. Since I’m writing to you all, it’s evident that I survived – but not without getting a long black grease scratch on my leg.
Although I only wrote about one small area in New Mexico, the state is packed full of fun and adventurous places to explore. I can’t wait to visit New Mexico again!
