Road Trip

Road trip!

 I got a late start from Santa Fe heading north. I drove through Chama then west to Pagosa Springs and Durango. I thought I would stay in Moab but Moab is no longer the sleepy town of twenty years ago. Even in the dark I could see the Ramada Inn and Auto Zone in place of the funky restaurant I ate at years ago. Sometimes you want a place that was special to you twenty years ago to remain the same. Corporate America has found Moab and I could not find any back roads into the canyon country in the darkness so I continued on.

Twenty miles before Price, Utah my inner clock said pull over so I did and slept under the stars a mile off the interstate. I slept but not well, waking to a gray dawn. I drove onward over Solider Summit with solid white snow banks lining the pass at 7,500 feet ,April 16, 2010 five hundred miles north of Santa Fe.

I had white knuckles on the steering wheel north of Provo coming into Salt Lake City There were six lanes of traffic, one way. Too much for a country boy from Santa Fe. I was tired and my stomach felt tight. 

North of Ogden I passed a road sign for the Crystal Hot Springs. I continued on a few miles and pulled off the interstate for gas. I debated. A hot springs. What could it be? A few miles back. So what. What was I doing, where was I going. What was the hurry. I drove back and turned off at the exit and drove on a broken blacktop road to the Crystal Hot Springs.

It was closed. But there were people in the pools. I went into the office. Closed, the attendant said. He hesitated. Just one of you? Yes, I said. What the heck. Come on in, We‘ve opened it up early for a big family gathering.

Outside the sun was shining weakly through morning haze. The springs are at the edge of the Wasatch mountains that rise to the east of the Great Salt Lake. Halfway up the slopes the white snow rose eternal toward the blue sky. Cottonwoods arched over the pools. Geese honked from the sky above. Blackbirds were in the surrounding green fields. It was springtime. I was where I wanted to be.

Six dollars for the day. A quick shower. Three pools of various temperatures. Two swimming pools. A funky water slide that was being started for the youngsters in the large family. I stepped into the middle pool. Hot water. Just right. The kids were running up the steps of the water slide. Now shrieking as they slid down the slide into the arms of their parents. Wearing oversized life vests and waddling side to side, they ran as fast as they could to the top of the slide to do it all over again. And again and again.

There was a salty taste on my lips as I dunked my head. The water is the Great Salt Lake percolating down in the ground until it meets hot earth and comes up heated and mineralized in the springs. Water to wash me clean, water to take away my sorrows. I relaxed. I tried the other pools and drank cold water from the tap. I asked why the springs were still funky and affordable. Too far from Salt Lake City to fix up, the attendant said. Plus, Utah people are cheap, he smiled. Crystal Hot Springs is rated one of the top six waters in America for healing. Later, I sat at a park bench underneath the cottonwood trees. Their barely green buds were a canopy above me.

Later that day  I was in Meridian, just west of Boise, Idaho. It was the end of a big day. Epi's is a Basque restaurant I had read about and, by golly, driven a lot of miles to eat at. Christi, the proprietor, was flattered to hear of my many miles driven. Asked what I wanted, I said, everything!

Christi and the wait staff tried to bring me everything. A cup of red bean soup would not do, another bowl of fish chowder was brought out. Just to try it, she said. The salad that came with my meal was good but I needed to have the green beans and beets too. Lamb stew was served and then a plate of sliced leg of lamb was brought out because I, might like it too. Flan  and homemade raspberry sauce for desert. I think Christi was like this with all her customers because one party that was coming later had sent roses for all the tables and she called everyone hon and when I told the chef that the lamb stew that had mushrooms and a reduced burgundy sauce was a masterpiece, Christi gave me a hug. I waddled out of the restaurant, slower than the boys at the waterslide but eager enough to return when my stomach would let me. I thought, this doesn't happen to me in Santa Fe, is it me or is the wide open spaces. I don't know but I do know; I'm on a road trip.