Friends, Hot Springs, and Naps

Monday-Tuesday, Aug. 20-21, 2018 [Photos to follow]

Sam the RV in our campsite

Sunday-Monday, Aug. 20-21, 2018

We have had a couple of lovely, relaxing days in Cascade Campground. In fact, it’s been so nice, Joe and I are staying here an extra night until Wednesday, before leaving.

Monday we woke up with me still saying, “That was SO SCARY!” as I thought about the drive the day before. Joe said, “It was an ADVENTURE!” Which indeed it was. We got up and had breakfast, with an eye in the direction of Ben and Miriam’s campsite. Ben had gotten up early and driven into town to handle a business phone call, and there was no evident activity around their teardrop trailer, so we set up our chairs and sat outside in the sunshine, just relaxing. The air was cool-- it went down into the 50s during the night and was still jeans and sweatshirt weather. Just perfect!

Finally I saw that Ben’s car was back and there were small people in pajamas outside, so I walked over to say good morning. Naama (6) and Yael (4) were both awake and excited to say hello. They were eager to come “see our campsite”, so their mom got them dressed and then they came over to visit. Ben and Miriam said they had two ideas for the day-- a visit to a nearby whiskey distillery, and hot springs at the Mount Princeton resort we’d passed the night before.

Naama and Yael drawing on the kitchen table

I suggested I keep the girls to give B&M a little more time at the distillery, so they left for about 90 minutes, and Joe and I spent the rest of the morning with Naama and Yael. Joe did a few “hacks” in the kitchen, fixing the cabinet under the sink so it was far more useful and things would not fall out of it. The girls and I played “Camping Bingo” (which we’d picked up at Dinosaur for them), walked Cassie, they showed me the rock formation near their campsite which was remarkably like a playhouse (we played restaurant (I was the customer, Naama was the waitress and Yael was the cook) and shopping (I was the customer, Yael worked in the store and helped me find what I wanted to buy, and Naama checked me out), and then came back to the RV, where they decided to draw some pictures. No one had markers or crayons, but we had enough pens and some stuff for them to draw on. We had snacks. And before I could suggest we walk around the campground loop and see how many different kinds of RVs we could see, their parents returned and it was lunchtime.

Camping Bingo

Joe and I napped and read our books while they all had lunch and did whatever else they were doing, and at about 3:30 we were finally ready to go to the hot springs. Then ensued changing into bathing suits, sunscreening, etc. We fit all 7 of us in their minivan, and went back down the road about 10 minutes to an obviously upscale resort. There are two areas of hot springs and pools. We started at the upper pools, because they have a 400 foot water slide up there! There are two large pools connected by a small lazy-river type thing, and the slide ends in one of the pools. There are also two small pools, one of which was about 104 degrees, and that is where Joe and I sat most of the time. At some point I went into the 102 degree pool with Naama, and the others bobbed around in the big pools (about 98 degrees) and went down the slide a few times.

The upper pools closed at 6pm (we’d arrived at around 4:30) so we got back in the car and went to the lower parking lot. Down there, we went into the historic bath house (dark wood and an old feel to it), and then going past the two pools, we climbed over rocks lining Chalk Creek, which was flowing vigorously past the bath house. Hot springs flow directly into the creek, and people were lying in stone “pools” along the edge, soaking. We quickly realized that the pools were not as hot as we preferred (except when we found one spot where the water was entering the pool from between some rocks, and it was way too hot to keep a hand or foot under it!) The dilution of the hot springs from the stream tumbling over the rocks cooled the little side pools off a lot. So Joe and I climbed back up the rocks again, and sat on some chaise lounges, while the “kids” waded carefully past a few pools until they found one they could all sit in for a bit. Ben told us that it was neat having the natural sand under them, because if you dug down into it, it got hotter! But for me and Joe, we liked our 104 degrees in the pool earlier just fine!

Chalk Creek, with hot "pools" along the side

About 7pm or so, we finally dried ourselves off enough to come back to the campground. And at that point, Joe and I ate something, and then lay down and realized we were not getting up again. He did take the dog out once more and say goodnight, but otherwise, that was it for our day! And, I forgot to take my phone to the hot springs, so no photos of the very lovely facilities! Maybe I can get some on our way out of the area, although I didn’t notice any place where an RV could fit in the parking areas too well.

Tuesday (today) morning the kids were up ahead of us, getting ready to go back to Denver. Joe and I decided to stay in Cascade for one more night. It is so mellow here-- the campsites are far apart, and the weather all day has been sprinkling rain and clearing up and then sprinkling again. So we are going to hang out here and just enjoy the quiet. We did enjoy the morning, though-- the girls walked with me and Cassie, and then we had a game of Camping Bingo, and then they drew some more pictures while their parents packed up the car and trailer. They are just the cutest! And Judah loved Cassie, who was VERY patient with a little person petting her and poking at her. So cute!

They finally pulled out at about noon or shortly thereafter. Joe and I had lunch, and now he is napping and I am catching up on the blog. Our plan is to spend tonight here, like I said, and then tomorrow we will go to Buena Vista (which we learned is pronounced BEW-na Vista) and do some laundry and, I sure hope, upload the blogs and photos-- we’ve been without connectivity for several days. And by then, I will have to come up with our next destination-- there is so much to do for people who like hiking, bike riding, rafting, zip-lining, and other outdoor sports. But for people like us with limited physical strength, it’s hard to figure out what to do. Joe thinks he might like to go rafting but it depends on how he is feeling. And it’s not so hot anymore-- in the lower 70s and going down to the high 40s at night! So just enjoying the weather is nice. But I’m sure we’ll find some other adventures too-- I have a pile of tourist guides to give me ideas.

Now, it’s nap time! And hopefully Miriam will send me photos of Judah with Cassie to decorate this blog with. [Addition: we napped for hours! It has been raining most of the afternoon, so this turned out to be the perfect day to “stay home” and rest. There is nothing cozier than napping in the afternoon with the rain pattering on the roof. We both feel very indulged. Now Joe is making us some black beans, rice, and corn for dinner--which I started craving when I ran across a can of corn in the back of our pantry. It’s probably time to completely empty out the entire RV, take inventory, and recalibrate. But meanwhile, we don’t need to do much in the way of grocery shopping. We are feeling very wealthy in general living like this.]