Mike's Southwest Travels: Dripping Springs 2

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Dripping Springs Second Trip
September 11, 2005

   

    "It wasn't dripping, damn it!" I shouted at the man in green with the wide-brimmed hat. "It was gushing.  A freaking torrent of water pouring out of God's own faucet!"

    "Yes, sir," the park ranger had all the cool authority of an armed man, "And what's the problem?"

    "This wasn't what I came here for!  It's Dripping-Freaking-Springs!  It's supposed to drip and it wasn't.  This is false advertising.  I want my three bucks back!"

    The park ranger was nonplussed by the logic of my argument.  He was also reaching for either his walkie-talkie or his gun.  I decided to let the matter drop and contented myself with an otherwise well-spent afternoon, and hastily returned to my vehicle without further complaint.

    Regardless of the duplicity of the park service, my return to Dripping Springs was a triumph.  I have now seen the eponymous Dripping Springs (dripping, though they weren't) and the Dripping Springs Resort/tuberculosis sanitarium.  The later of which is in ruins, which is too bad, because this would be a tremendous place for a park lodge.  Unfortunately the crappy, broken-down old buildings there are now old enough to be considered historic landmarks.  Regrettably, I am not in charge of these matters.

   

 

Here are the springs themselves.  Trust me, the water is flowing.

Here's the well.  If this were just cleaned up, it could easily provide enough water for the DiMatteo Dripping Springs Park Lodge and Casino.

 

A PBS crew from the local station happened to be up there as well.  They were discussing the possibility of doing a historical reality show.  In keeping with the history of the ruins, the show would be called, Tuberculosis House.  "It'll be like an cross between Big Brother and Survivor with genuine historical hardship," exclaimed one producers.

   

This is a little used path I found away from the resort.  I later learned that this was called the  Forbidden Path of Death to Overly-Inquisitive Hikers.  One giant leap for Mike-kind later, I found the sanitarium.

   

   

Remains of the sanitarium.