Spring Time

Katherine and I took a short road trip to Saratoga Springs, Wyoming in August just to get away for a few days.  About three hours drive from Loveland, Colorado, this town consisted of some hot springs, two gas stations, a handful of hotels, and a few hundred people who seemed to have taken up residence here for their own personal reasons.  We booked a room at the hotel which included access to several hot tubs and a large pool filled with mineral water.  Some of the hot tubs were mostly covered with teepee-like structures that gave a large amount of privacy, just in case, say,  you and your partner needed some alone time to, oh, review old tax returns or exchange highly sensitive military intelligence.

The hotel room had its own share of peculiarities.  In addition to the queen sized bed, much of the room was occupied by a large rustic looking armoire.  I’m not sure if it was real rustic or fake rustic– around here it could go either way.  Inside the armoire is a very medium sized television set.  A shelf above the television is a shelf bowing under the weight of a large VCR with, if carbon dated, would probably be traced backed to the early 1980s.  I can’t remember ever having been in a hotel room with a VCR.  We got all the standard cable channels, some better than others– perhaps a sign of a few too many sets connected to the cable feed.  All the network channels were based in Denver, which kind of negated the feeling that we were out in the middle of nowhere.  Or at least as much of nowhere that is left these days.  Come to think about it, we did pass a large Walmart distribution center about 60 miles from town, so somewhere is getting closer all the time.

The only other notable attribute of the hotel was the high pressure nozzle on the shower.  This device literally separates the water molecules into individual atoms before shooting them out at a velocity approaching the speed of light.  This causes the water to assume wavelike properties and travel straight through my body, the tub, the subfloor, and so on until it slows down somewhere, I suspect, near the molten core of the planet.

While somewhat limited in our dining choices, we found a rather small-townsy type place that served a small selection of breakfast options.  We must have come during the morning rush, because the one waiter was overwhelmed trying to take care of everyone.  When the shelf of clean coffee mugs became empty, one of the customers cleaned up a few tables, took everything into the kitchen, and came back out in a few minutes with a dozen clean mugs.  That’s what I like about visiting small towns– well, that and we didn’t see a single mugging or car-jacking.