The Fountain of Youth

Well, 7500 miles down and finally we remembered another of the goals of the trip: to go where no one - oops, that was another adventure, not this one - hehe. Actually, one of the goals was to experience a few natural hot springs along the way. There are actually a lot of hot springs around and even though they don’t enjoy quite the popularity they once did, I still find them wonderful, having enjoyed the therapeutic and relaxing properties of hot water any time I had a chance through the years.

I had noticed, early in the trip, that on our way to Yellowstone National Park, we could take a path that would lead us through Thermopolis, Wyoming, the home of that state’s Hot Springs State Park. We arrived mid-afternoon and completed a quick tour of the park facilities: $7 each to swim in the pool and no overnight camping, not exactly what we had in mind. We fixed a quick lunch, viewed the Bison herd, and took off to find a place to camp for the night. It didn’t take long to explore the town of about 3,000 inhabitants, and no great free camping spots jumped out at us. This was near dusk (about 7:00 PM), my least favorite time to drive since the sun was in my eyes and we decided to break down and checkout the local commercial campgrounds. Out of the 4 listed in the Woodall’s directory I picked the one that promised to have a hot springs-fed swimming pool on-site, the Fountain of Youth RV Park.

We were told we could have the last site available for the day and quickly snatched it up and were told the pool was open until 9:30 PM. Quickly we parked and hooked up and headed for the water. We were both amazed at the size of the pool. It had said 84,000 cu. Ft. in the brochure but who knows what that means! At any rate it was enormous in size (235 x 72 feet) and a perfect 100 degrees (Fahrenheit for all you Celsius people). The hot springs that feeds the pool was measured at 1.4 million gallons per day so the water in the pool is renewed every 11 hours making chlorination unnecessary. The water comes out of the ground at 128 degrees F. and is cooled before it enters the pool itself. Once a week the pool is drained, scrubbed, and refilled. The story is that in 1918 a man named C. F. Cross hit hot water while drilling for oil, water which erupted with such force that it destroyed the derrick when the well came in. We probably spent as much as 4 hours a day in the pool knowing that we might never again find another such relaxing spot. One other point of interest was an old Airstream trailer we saw sitting off to the side with interesting markings on the side. We just had to make pests of ourselves and ask lots of questions and beg for a tour of the inside, which was packed with every luxury one would find in a 30' motorhome. It turns out that the trailer belongs to the parents of the owner, Oscar and Etta Payne who were the first to take a trailer around the world. After two days of soaking and getting organized we are ready to head up to Yellowstone but be assured that during the rest of the trip we will be keeping our eyes open for another hot springs to soak our weary bodies in.