Healing Waters Trail Part I, or, The Tourist

One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things. 

 Henry Miller

The secret was this: I did not know where the trail was and I was not about to ask. I had a map, but it still embarrassingly eluded me. I had attended board meetings and was writing a history of the trail for future promotion and distribution. But I had not been on it yet, and I could not find it. What kind of place ethnographer was I? My plan was to backtrack from Rotary Park and come up the hill by Carrie Tingley. In this way, I would end up at the start of the trail, and no one would be the wiser. But I had not gotten to it.
 

Last Tuesday I dropped off Emagen at the Apple Tree Learning Center. The school sits a mere 100 feet or so from where the trail begins, according to the working map where it was clearly marked. I knew it was right there. I did my usual visual scan heading back into town for an interview, and lo! there it was. Right where it should have been, next to the brown sign with the white rounded-stick couple carrying walking sticks and backpacks, day-hikers without a doubt. I had driven by that sign for weeks. I had driven by and parked and walked around, but not to the far back corner. Tucked neatly into the far northwest corner of the Veterans Memorial Center, the trail was a thing of tidy beauty, although the entrance, pictured at left with favorite tour guide Sherry Fletcher, who got let in on my secret early. The newly planted pine trees on one side and native Apache Plume on the other creates a great corridor effect as it sends hikers on their merry way. It is hard to spot, set along the far side of the big space and parking lot of the Veterans Memorial  Park. The trailhead will be up soon, and the entrance to the trail given additional sprucing up, so it will not be such a hard-to-find trail entrance. I planned to share my failure to locate the trail as funny 'field' story sometime in the future when my dissertation is finished and I am hiking the trail for pure pleasure, good clean air and exercise. 

My bad-place-ethnographer secret does provide a good illustration about tourists though, and that is where this short post will lead. It is not where-are-we-going and what-are-we-going-to-do-there kind of tourist story, or maybe it is. I am a tourist of sorts, a research tourist, not that the academy might ken to this idea. Part of my work as a 'critical' place scholar is to be aware of the ways that scholars themselves are consumers of places and people in their work. In other words, we act a lot like tourists. Thinking on it, I cannot see a whole lot of systematic differences in means. In ends perhaps, when all of that keen observation and documentation produces something of value. Too often, however, a humanities researcher will leave and leave nothing behind, like a good day hiker. We come, we record, we leave. We generate knowledge about an area, but mostly that knowledge is used by other scholars or lost in the endless vaults of unpublished academic production. Rarely is this knowledge the  kind of thing that locals get something out of directly. This may be changing. The work of scholars, like tourists, gets a potentially global audience these days, and even unpublished works can be disseminated. The same is true of tourists on trips. The slide show in the living room world is gone.

I keep talking about wanting to be useful to my research community. For example, writing a history of the trail I cannot find. Hysterical. But back to tourists, and the place makers who want them to tourist their way on over to whatever attraction is waiting. Tourists, like the world, are changing. There are lots of 'special' kinds of tourist these days. More and more people who are realizing that the great places these kinds of tourists are attracted to, and visit, and spend a lot of money on, cannot be created just for tourists. The spaceport theme park might get the old fashioned and still-plentiful theme-park tourists, but smaller places cannot compete here. Where can they compete? With the special tourists. Who are special tourists, you ask? All tourists are special! You betcha! This is true in so many ways, of course, because tourism is a global industry. It is the holy grail of so many places, because it is the only money, beside government money and grant money that is left in a lot of places. Tourism has replaced the base industries of manufacturing, mining, agriculture, ranching, and other ways people used to make a living. These jobs have migrated with global commodities markets and distant resource extraction. Our service jobs are headed that direction too. As the things we used to make, broadly, with our hands and the things we used to manage, broadly, with our heads have themselves traveled to different lands, what do we have left? The land remains, if we have taken good care of it. And the historic fabric in the environment remains, if we have not torn down to much of it. And the people will be here, if there is a living that can be made. And the fact is that tourism is part of how we make a living the world over. But it cannot be the only way.

http://www.unwto.org/facts/menu.html

I have been reading a lot about tourism. Mostly about the “trip adviser  tourist of modern times, although there are some great seminal works on tourism. I will post my bibliography sometime soon, but in the meantime let me describe the new kid on the tourist scene. She is into heritage tourism or ecotourism and cool funky places (hence the land comment and historic buildings comments above). She is equipped with a smart phone and laptop. She uses these to compare room prices and amenities as she drives through town. She can scan QT tags and link to websites at the push of a button for more information, and experiences exasperation at the lack of Wi Fi in rural places. Most importantly, she wants trips that are not about tourist attractions to look at and places to visit, but attractions and places to experience. She might be looking to bike and hike. She might be looking to dance the night away. She might have kids in tow she wants to educate about history in new and exciting ways, places where the history comes alive. Then again, she might want to experience the great amenities of an affordable place from the comfort of her Wi-Fi enabled RV, where she and the mister live now, following the sun across the states. It is hard market. But here we are.

http://jonkeegan.com/illo.php?id=33

Illustration by John Keegan

June 28, 2000

Time Out New York: 

The Tourist Issue

I want to be in the heritage tourist and historic preservation field someday as scholar and as a professional. I want to promote and enable random acts of art, culture, history and landscape celebration, so I am very interested in these trends. Tourists used to be travelers to places that were not home. Now even at home you can have a stay-cation, or a day-cation. What a grand idea. There is a lot of talk about tourism in the town of Truth or Consequences. It has always been a mainstay of the town. But as a part of something else, namely the healing properties of the water. There was also the kind of under-the-covers tourism ( prostitution and gambling remain ever-popular globally) that had a heyday when the first bust of mining and boom of government reclamation money came to town.  It was only in the 1950s and post-WWII landscape that the rise of leisure and tooling around the region in your cars getting some kicks, in addition to the town's name change, shifted away from the history of hot water.
 
Small towns cannot live on tourist dollars alone, so some other kind of industry must be available. While a new factory would be nice, especially a new eco-friendly manufacturer of  something or the other, the creation of a good place will build towards that kind of relocation. And in the meantime, the kinds of place making going on in town are pretty sharp. The Healing Waters Trail is a very visionary kind of place. It is a new kind of tourist attraction, a kind of place amenity that will please tourists and townies alike. Truth or Consequences is located in a beautiful landscape, and the very small part of the trail I have walked highlights this loveliness. I have only walked the first one hundred yards or so granted, so far, but so far I am delighted. The views are magnificent.  The interpretive signs are bright and fun. The Veterans Memorial Park is a deeply moving place, which I will write about next week in Part II. I will sign off with another cascade of photos, like last week, in the name of getting something published before I hit the road  back down to Truth or Consequences, camera in hand, eagerly tramping around like a tourist who just moved to town.

 

 

Fiestas y Auga Caliente

photo by author, shirt by dukatt!

Mark Twain did not say “Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.” It’s a great quote, and a well-worn one, but there’s no reliable evidence linking it to Twain. This is Myth #122, debunked courtesy of the Nevada State Library and Archives. Discovered during a troll for water quotes, this historical tidbit got me thinking about Sherry Fletcher, Truth or Consequences town historian, retired educator, Campo Espinosa founder, and champion of all manner of causes. Sherry is a stickler for solid historical evidence. It is a fine sight to see when Sherry is faced with a dubious place narrative or other fiction -masked-as-historical-fact. Her eyes narrow and spark, her shoulders square, and she demands to know where the evidence is located. What file, photo or newspaper will confirm and make reliable whatever history is being spun? Sherry is a show me the money kind of scholar, and her currency is the historical record. She has combed the global archives reading and translating Spanish accounts of regional pre-colonial flora and fauna in order to restore a small part of the vivid New Mexico landscape to its ancient roots. And to learn her history of place. Campo Espinosa, the wetland wildlife refuge that she and her husband Baxter have nurtured into being out by Chuchillo Bridge on the way to Elephant Butte, "is an emerging jewel, nurtured by the springs once hidden in the stifling salt cedar growth." (http://www.enchantment.coop/features/0404Salt.html)

Photo from Sally Bickley's article on Campo Espinosa. See link above. 

History is tricky, but a good guide is invaluable. Anyone who has ever trekked through a strange place can attest to this fact. Sherry Fletcher and Destiny Mitchell were the tour bus guides during the 4th Annual Hot Springs Festival last Sunday. I signed up to take a tour with each. I missed Destiny's bus, which I heard was a rollicking good time. I made Sherry's however, and had a a terrific go around the Hor Springs Historic Bathhouse District, visiting places I have been familiar with for years. The spa tour stopped at 8 of the 10 bathhouses in town. The spas are resplendent. Amenities  range from gorgeously inviting rooms, divine patios and spectacular views to well-stocked gift shops and gracious hosts. And water. Always there is the water. These places are jewels too. There is a dialogue in town about 'figuring out' the identity of the town in order to 'figure out' the future of the town. But as far as I can figure, and my math feels pretty solid, the town has always been about water. It is the it that defines this there. Water is the lifeblood of the river, one that kills in  dough or torrential flood. It is the reason the Jornada del Muerto is a journey of death. It is etched in muddy green on the mental map of every last ranchers who knows every last creek and watering hole. It is the dam that shifted the economy from mining, where water bored through mountains and sluiced weath from rock. It was the crown of modernization, rooted in agriculture before World War I. Water wedded to technology promised an empire Eden in the arid west. It founds recreation, leisure and wetland conservation. From the first healing hot waters that bubbled up in the once swampy and river-washed historic district, the identity of this town is awash in water.

"The Hot Springs of Truth or Consequences" Posted by Johnny_Mango

Every bathhouse in town is extraordinary, for more than just the water. But like a lot of New Mexico, you have to venture in a ways. A friend once remarked New Mexico is deceptively unremarkable. The sense of place, the feeling you are somewhere distinctive and striking, is powerful in New Mexico. It can take a while to take hold, but it rarely lets go. You cannot easily tell from the front of places what lies behind. Enter an ordinary doorway and emerge into a courtyard where wisterias run riot and old benches line shady portals. The desert teems with intricate and colorful life, but it can blur by in a streak of brown from a fast moving car. Our beauty is also the spectacular kind. Even in a fast car, blue skies, hot pink sunsets and vast sweeps of county cannot be ignored. These paradoxes are evident in Truth or Consequences.  Beauty is in plain sight. It is in the historic downtown that evokes mid-century American Main Streets and the sweep of the Caballo Mountains that loom above town. But is is also obscured in empty dusty buildings that have not been re-purposed in this time of economic stagnation, or tucked away out of sight behind ordinary adobe or cement walls where hot mineral waterfalls bubble over iridescent stones.

"The Hot Springs of Truth or Consequences" Posted by Johnny_Mango

Sometimes the  sense of place mostly absent, like it is in some newer parts of town that reflect post-WWII automobile-centered areas where architecture, landscape and other elements generally ignore pedestrians all together. And forget public spaces in these places. This is true all over the world. And it has been the demise a many places, as place identities and senses of place are lost to the chain-store nowhere of everywhere. The strong visuals and experience that go into creating a sense of place operate best from a pedestrian scale in contained or developed spaces. This is why most historic districts have a good feel when you walk around them, because you can walk around them. The Healing Water's Trail, which will be featured here next week, illustrates this most valuable asset and adds to the attraction of place. The name gets to the heart and  soul of this town. In one of my favorite interviews I asked someone to conjure T or C  in ten years. What would it be, I asked this great lady. What it has always been she said, a healing place. And it will be led by women she added, because they honor the water. Women will heal, and business will be steady, because there is a lot to heal. Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted as saying a woman is like a tea bag,  you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water. 

If New Mexicans can agree on anything, we can agree that water is the heart and lifeblood of our body politic. We generally disagree about where the heart should be pumping our lifeblood to in the said same body politic. Do we irrigate? If we do, do we irrigate crops or grass or golf courses? Even if you are an agriculturalist, are the crops for subsistence, traditional community preservation and acequia rights, small-scale farming, or large-scale industrial agriculture? Is the water for Intel and industry, or for the silvery minnow and riparian areas? Is the water for Mexico and treaty obligations, or for recreation? There is one idea in these comparisons that comes through, and that is the idea that this resource is finite, and Mark Twain may not have said the fighting words, but people love this quote for a reason. Thousands have lived without love, wrote W. H. Auden, not one without water.

nwfoodnews.com

I generally hold that the finite pie model is a a poor model to create sustainable places. It is a zero-sum game model. There is a pie, and you either get your crumb, for some of us, or your huge piece for the lucky few, or you do without like a lot do. Once the pie is gone it is gone. This kind of thinking does not allow the ingenuity and collaboration necessary to grow the pie so more people can have a share. This is a value adding outlook. Rather than fight over each tourist dollar, for example, you encourage them to experience all that the town has to offer. They respond by bringing back friends. But water, like history, is tricky. There are obligations to a lot of people, and the interpretations of value, cause, effect, and proof are numerous and tied to specific ends . We can conserve and harvest water to degrees that are unimaginable now, and should forthright, but we just can't make more. There is a notice on the study of the mineral water and geothermal springs that the town rests on, in all kinds of ways going up around town. The City has called in the bright minds of New Mexico Tech to assess the state of the water, to quell the history being written in conjecture and speculation.

http://hotspringsfestival.com

American used to be a network of rural places that tied into great urban cities. The last century has seen profound changes. How places emerge and transform, and how places remain and persist reflect the notion that place is powerful. Sherry tells people I write about the Power of Place, to borrow a term from place historian and place maker Delores Hayden. I enjoy this description of my work, not that I am writing so much as this point. There is too much to learn. I got lost in the history of water in the West for an entire year before I got to the town. During the tour, Sherry and I shared a laugh over the often repeated place narrative that the local springs having an ancient history of peace-loving soaking. This is a common historical narrative of Hot Water towns in the US. The idea is that hot water is sacred is not a stretch. The healing powers of water are well-documented, although science is just catching up to other ways of knowing. The idea that that hot springs were places where first nations people laid down arms and soaked in mutual peace, love and understanding is interesting. I like it, and I think there is some good evidence that there were site like this in other regions of the United States. I have yet to come across much evidence in this region's historical record to stand by this narrative. An Apache  reservation up by the Warm Springs existed, and there is a photo on the banner by the Charles Hotel and Bathhouse. This history is not known to me. I do love the old picture above that shows a you-are-welcome-to-get-the-hell-away-from-here-with-that-camera look.

Photo shows Warm Springs Apache Reservation

In an overview of the geothermal properties of the area,  John W. Lund of the Geo-Heat Center and James C. Witcher of the Southwest Technology Development Institute at NMSU write that, "It is said that Indians in the region used the springs as “neutral grounds” long before Europeans settled the area. Indian tribes no doubt gathered here without conflict for the trading, religious purposes, to bathe, and to alleviate ailments." (20,  http://geoheat.oit.edu/bulletin/bull23-4/art5.pdf). No doubt indeed. And said by who is not evident in the bibliography. The T or C Chamber of Commerce writes that "Because of the hot mineral springs which issued from the ground, the site of the present Truth or Consequences was considered "neutral grounds" by the Southwestern Indians long before white settlement of the area.  Here they gathered without conflict for the inter-tribal exchange and to bathe their wounds and other ailments."  There are some questions about the geography of that statement according to Sherry, in addition to a host of other accuracy problems .

But here is the great thing, even when it means fighting words. All of these stories come from our shared experiences of place, and the relationships we have with each other and the world around us. These are the cultural landscapes that we fight to maintain and sustain, because they are home. And it does not matter if this is home for thousands or hundreds or dozens of years, or a person just want to feel at home for a weekend. If you are in a place you are part of what makes that place. And the Forth Annual Hot Springs Festival was a great place to be on a beautiful day and evening in early October. The tour was fantastic, the bands were playing, the kids were laughing, folks were dancing and the beer, if not whiskey, was for drinking. And the water, as I can attest from my free soak at La Paloma gifted during the tour, was for healing.