One of the big stories I've been working on for the past month aired Friday night. That means I can blog about it! woohoo! The small picture you see is of the brain eating amoeba that has killed several people this year. It's extremely rare to become infected, but there has been a spike in cases-- and it is nearly %100 fatal. Shari actually tracked down a survivor who was infected as a little girl in 1978. She was infected at Deep Creek Hot Springs-- a nudist hot springs. Yes, I went there to get video of the springs a couple of days ago. And yes, Shari and I had quite an adventure!
After our 3 hour drive (in which we certainly did not get lost due to poor signage or need to use our 4 wheel drive to handle the crazy treacherous "roads" that in no way jostled us about like an 8.9 quake on the richter scale)-- we finally arrived at our destination! No, not the Springs. First you have to drive to Bowen Ranch. It was blocked off with fences, rope, and no trespassing signs and sports what appeared from the "road" as a shack with some broken down trucks from the 40s rusting away out front. (This would be the reason we passed it the first time).

This, is where you get your map (actually what the map looked like above) to the springs to begin either your leisurly 12 mile roundtrip gentle hike or your intensely steep 4 mile round trip hike. We decided on the intense 4 mile hike. How steep could it be?


Above is Shari after pretending to have locked the keys in the car in the middle of nowhere! (forrest is closed due to the recent fires). She had me laughing! (really, I'm not one to get stressed. I thought it was funny!).



I'm sure the rest of this sign at the trail head didn't say anything important.

The hike was so beautiful! There were areas you really didn't want to lose your footing, but it wasn't too bad...until...



Mount Sepia Tone! The picture from my cell phone doesn't really do this justice. You can see Shari down below. The loose, sandy, gravely mountain was very difficult to climb. A couple climbed past us and Shari asked, "Is this really how everybody gets to the springs!?". "Oh, no," the man replied, "We call this the MOFO!". Yes, Shari and I were in the middle of tackling the Mofo!

I'm going to cut this story short. Dave and I are going to go climb the Vasquez rocks! So, long story short, we successfully climbed the Mofo, almost got back to the car without getting off on a different trail, Made it back before the 24/7 coverage from cable networks began: Search for the "Missing NUDE Hot Springs Journalists". :) Have a great weekend! I'll bring back pics from Vasquez!