#64: Soak in some hot springs

 Last weekend, we drove to Nelson, B.C.

Highway 20

A beautiful drive through rain, a stop for soft-serve at the Ram Drive-Thru, a border crossing, a Kenny Loggins' "Live from the Redwoods" CD (always (lately)), a swanky room with a view, a halibut wrapped in prosciutto, French music TV, tall-boy cans of beer we don't get in the states, gorgeous northwesty-looking humans, a cinnamon bun for breakfast, brie and a baguette for lunch, used bookstores and a colorful kitchen store, aging draft-dodgers; all this before we even got to the hot springs.

Our view of the courthouse from the Hume Hotel

Breakfast at John Ward Fine Coffee

Nelson is awesome. I regret that it's taken me so long to visit this beautiful piece of Canada.  It was even more fun to visit while we were renting a couple of fancy camera lenses and capture our visit in new and exciting ways (for camera nerds).

The wide angle view from our window

A charming little dining room at Bibo (Nelson)

After exploring some Nelson shops in the morning, we took off around lunchtime for Ainsworth hot springs. It is a 45 minute drive from Nelson, across Kootenay Lake and northeast.

Crossing Kootenay Lake

Joel shot this from the dining room of the resort

The facility, which is partly a resort, features two places to soak. One is a pool, the type of experience I'm used to, where they cool the water to barely a degree above human body temperature. Surrounding you are views of the majestic Selkirk mountains, or in our case, clouds and mist enveloping the mountains. Still serene.

The other place to soak at Ainsworth: lord a'mercy. The cave! I envisioned a little alcove, a man-made cave that people had to take turns sitting in. But no, this was a deep cavern built into the mountain that allowed you to wade into one entry and float out another in a loop. There were several alcoves along the way where you could hide out, and the main path was moodily lit. Also, it's much hotter in there at about 114 degrees. It's a challenge to carry on a conversation because of the reverb, plus the fact that there's a loud stream of water rushing out near the entry at its true temp. I had no idea until later that while we were hanging out in one of the alcoves, Joel was trying to alert me to a man sitting further behind us in a darker recess, which was why he moved us on to the next one. But no matter, hot springs are for soaking, not talking. They even have rules to keep pool toys and splashy people out of the water.

I forgot to mention there's also a 44-degree plunge pool. We did that, too.

Did I just turn this blog post into an Ainsworth promo?

Back to Nelson, then. The people we encountered were lovely, from the woman at the camera store who told us about Au Soleil Levant (a French-Canadian bakery tucked away in an alley), to the hotel staff who kindly mailed my postcards and found me a plastic knife for my brie, to the guy at All Seasons Cafe who, after we declined dessert, provided us each with a complimentary glass of port. It had a nice small town feel while still feeling much more cosmopolitan than Spokane (not hard to do). It really did feel like we were in a different country, which made it the perfect quick fix for a couple who is itching to travel with passports. We needed the getaway and this was the perfect kind.