Hot Springs and Flathead Lake 9/23/18

Today Liz and I went with Heather in her RV to Hot Springs, Mt. Liz drove Heather’s RV and here is Liz giving herself hand signals to get back into her lane (something she does pretty regularly as she’s driving). She said to me, “I’m so quiet, I don’t even talk out loud to myself!” I told her, “I don’t really find you all that quiet. Except maybe in groups.”

The deer was in the yard at the retreat center. When we said, “Hey, there’s a deer” people were not really responsive since that is an everyday occurrence in Montana (as you will see below). Liz has stopped taking pictures of deer.

This is on the way to Hot Springs (which, guess what? They have hot springs there!! - yet another cleverly-named place in Montana!) which is about 45 minutes from Lakeside (which, btw, is on the side of the lake...)

This is Hot Springs, MT where the 3rd most mineral-rich Hot Springs in the world exist at the Symes Hotel. And it’s probably not what you’re expecting! The mineral baths are fed into swimming pools that look like pretty ordinary pools, but the place is not at all fancy, and the neighborhood is pretty run down. They only charge $10 a day, but if they made this place more swanky they could charge a lot more money!! Lucky for us that was not the case!
 
There are pools with three different temps, about 85, about 104 and about 109. We spent most of our time in the 104 pool and a few minutes in the 109 pool. It was a really cool experience, it was like being in a bath that never cools down. My right shin was bothering me after our 2 hour hike at Glacier on Friday and it went away for a few hours after the bath. It also made my skin feel really good.
 
I’ve included a pic of a truck with a Hawaii license plate, mainly because Heather is from Hawaii and we got out of her RV and saw that. I also included a pic of how my sterling silver rings were affected by the minerals.

Liz's favorite memory of this place is that they had these robes you could rent for $3, it looked like a rack of robes that someone had scrounged from Goodwill. We wondered if they got washed between clients...

These are pictures of Flathead Lake on our ride back from Hot Springs. It’s the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi! The deer are from the neighborhood near the grocery store we went to after we got back to the retreat center, and Liz and I played Bananagrams! We spent the night in the camper in the lot of the retreat center (with permission) since we needed to stick around until my cool-weather clothing arrived from Arizona.
 
April, my Holbrook, Az. savior mentioned earlier, went way above and beyond what any normal person would expect in getting my items to me via FedEx. She went to the hotel 3 different times because they wouldn’t give my clothes to her because the employees were not leaving notes on my clothes or communicating with each other after the 5 times I called them. Many blessings on April and her boyfriend Pat, who refused any form of payment saying they believe in paying it forward. I assured them that I do too!