QUICK STATS

TODAY IS A REST DAY! HORRAY FOR REST DAYS!!  This past week has been really hard. The temperature has almost constantly been significantly above average (80's and 90's), we've traveled through areas with very scarce and limited resources (food, water, lodging), it has been deserty and shadeless most of the time, and there have been mild to strong opposing winds most days.  All in all, it has been a rough week.

I celebrated firstly by doing one of my favorite things - sleeping in!  When I finally rolled out of bed (a little after 8am), Nathan and I headed over to the Glory Hole for one of their famous cinnamon rolls.  Our mouths had been watering just thinking of their cinnamon rolls ever since we heard about them from Ken and Jen in Idaho.  We were pretty excited to finally get to have one. When the warm, steamy, gooey thing arrived at our table, instead of both eating it at the same time, we cut it in half just to make sure there would be no fighting. :-)  (Also, please don't spend too much time looking at my awful, just-woken-up, haven't-had-a-shower-in-a-long-time, puffy face in the picture below...just focus on the cinnamon roll.  Thank-you.)

After taking Smiley's picture (the cook, who we also heard about from Ken and Jen in Idaho), we headed over to the hot springs.  We groaned a little as we paid $38 for two tickets and two towels (we had expected to pay only $20), but we were still excited to soak our sore muscles and just relax.  The hot springs has 24 pools all with varying temperatures from 98 degrees to 115 degrees.  The water is milky looking in all of the pools, and it's from the Magnesium in the hot spring.  Magnesium is good for muscles, nerves, and bones.  Perfect!  It looked a little like rain, but that didn't deter us from getting right in.

As we tried different pools, I decided that I like the cooler pools, and Nathan decided he liked the hotter ones.  We explored lots of different pools, and I finally settled in at the Solarium Pool. Nathan kept exploring the other pools, including a few with water falls!  Nathan's poor tootsies eventually got too pruney for him to stay in the water, so he sat in a rocking chair enjoying the view and the day while I continued to soak in the Solarium Pool.

After a few hours at the hot springs, we left and went back to camp.  Our pass was good for all day, but we had some things that we needed to get done.  After lunch at our campsite, we started laundry.  While the laundry was going, we decided to go hunting for one of our favorite things: ice cream!  Unfortunately, there isn't any in the whole town, but there IS a candy store. :-)

When we walked into the candy store, I was stunned.  It was a real, old time, candy store, and there were 3 rooms FULL of candy!  We looked around for a while trying to make our choices.  Nathan ended up getting some peanut butter filled chocolates and some caramel filled chocolates.  I got dark-chocolate covered raisins and some crystallized ginger.  I first learned about crystallized ginger from the fabulous foodie, Kim Orleans (recently engaged to Ismael Martinez!).  It's a super pick-me-up and as refreshing as a glass of cold lemonade, and I've been looking for it for a while, so I was pretty happy to find some at the candy store.

Then we went back to the laundromat and ate LOTS of candy while our laundry finished up.  Then we packed up our laundry and dropped it off at our campsite.  We also checked our email and saw that Sara's aunt had written back to say we could stay at their condo in Keystone!  Yay!  Feeling happy and stress-free, we went back to the hot springs, sat in a pool called the Mountain View pool, and watched the sun set.  It was perfect. :-)

After dark, we reluctantly got out of the hot springs and walked back to camp.  All too fast, our rest day was coming to a close.  Why does that always happen?

We ate more candy while dinner cooked and then had dinner.  Amazingly, neither of us got sick to our stomachs from all the sugar we ate!

We enjoyed the last night in Hot Sulphur Springs and hope to get a good night's sleep and make good time to Keystone tomorrow with our refreshed muscles!

Goodnight, everyone.  Thanks for reading our blog!

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