Last night I called an older friend of mine who used to work with me. He has hiked many times with me to DCHS in years past. We had not talked in quite a while since he has moved out of the high desert area. In the the course of our conversation we got eventually to the subject of DCHS. I told him the latest springs news since he has not been up there in a while. He told me that his good friend of many years went up to DCHS about 6 months ago for his first visit in a couple of years. His friend went around the Bowen Ranch on the open routes to park. When his friend returned back to his car after some hours at the springs he found one of his tires was flat and had been slashed. My friend also told me that his friend had a tire slashed a number of years before in the same general area on the open routes. This older gentlemen who is my friend is one of the most honest people I have ever met so I have no doubt that he is sharing a truthful account of what his friend had told him. Of course last year there where four incidents of broken or shot out windows on the open routes around the Bowen Ranch that I know of and this incident appears to be last year too. I have not mentioned it before here on the forum, but last year I found that one of my tires had a slow leak in it after parking on the open routes around the Bowen Ranch. I found a slash about 4 inches on the tire. This slash was very clean like a knife and not jagged like a rock slash and it was high up on the sidewall of the tire. I didn't mention it at the time but after hearing this story from my friend I thought I should bring it up because it may have been similiar vandalism. I know that Rick who runs this forum had his tire slashed in the same general area. Its just too bad that these negative deeds have to affect people on thier peaceful visits to DCHS when parking on the open routes. Whats the purpose, or purposes, behind these slashed tires and broken windows? There are " real " answers to these questions, these incidents, these things did happen for specific reasons. If we were all knowing, say like a God, we would know why, but since we are just simple humans with limited abilities, trying to park and visit in peace a public place that belongs to all of us, a beautiful hot springs springs, we just simply have to endure these unjust acts to vehicles on the open routes in the area around the Bowen Ranch. Catching a culprit doing these things unfortunately won't change the past, but despite these things, that special place, DCHS, is absolutely worth it, that will always be true, for me.
