Today was a fairly busy day. We went back to Salida had lunch and bought art. We went to a goat dairy. We went horseback riding. We soaked in the hot springs.
We went back to Salida to do additional exploration at various art galleries. We ended up purchasing five prints by Linda Frances. Four of them are in one frame, the other isn't framed at this point but does have a mat. We ate lunch at Me Gusta!, a mexican place. I had a bowl of spicy watermelon gaspacho that knocked my socks off, but the rest of the meal left me - at best - cold. We also did the river walk - which was pretty short - but we got a great view of several kayakers engaging in some pretty interesting tricks.

Next we headed to the Jumping Good Goat Dairy. Last night at dinner, we had some of the goat cheese in an appetizer and it was just fabulous. This led us to wanting to make a trek out to the dairy to get some of our own. The little store was manned by two very nice people who invited us to head over to the pens with the kids. The little goats were very friendly.

After we got back from the Dairy, Alexus and I went on an hour horseback ride at the resort's stables. Unfortunately we had rainy and windy weather for the ride, but Alexus had a blast. The horses were very gentle and well behaved. The wrangler was very helpful and interesting to chat with.

When we got back to the resort, we cooked up a little supper and then headed to the lower pools. The soaking pool was 102 F (39 C) and the lap pool was about 90 F (32 C). You can also head down to the river an lie in the water in the creek. It is a mixture of very cold water (from the creek) and very hot water that comes from the springs. It is a curious experience lying in the water, but extraordinarily relaxing.

I have to say that this experience has been pretty special. I do think that we're highly likely to come back for additional stays. We have to check out tomorrow, and we're just a tad sad about that.

This morning I got up pretty early to head up to the lodge to get online. When I got back to the cabin, we made eggs and pancakes for breakfast with apple butter. Wandering up to the lodge at about 7:30 am, I saw steam coming off of one of the small springs running into the creek. The water coming from that outlet is rather warm.

After we ate breakfast, we gathered our tennis equipment and brutalized the court with our sad sad technique. It was a pretty sad display of ineptitude. That said, we had a whole lot of fun missing tennis balls.

We headed to Salida for lunch - Paula used to spend her allowance every week there - at a pizza place called Amicas. I had two pints of microbrewed beer with supper. The first was an extraordinarily hopped American IPA - it wasn't as balanced as I might of liked. It was too heavily hopped for the malt character. The second was a chili ale that was delicious. My lips were still burning a half hour after finishing the brew. We went to a little book store and a toy store in town and also picked up groceries. As convenient as the "Country Store" is at the resort, supplies are very expensive.
When we got back from Salida we chilled for about an hour and then went to the swimming pools with the 350 foot water slide (I was mistaken when I wrote 300 feet this morning). I went down a couple of times with the kiddo and splashed around a bit. The temperature of the pool was almost like a bathtub. Very very warm.

Finally, we wandered around for a bit on the resort figuring out where different paths led. All in all, it was a pretty good day. Tomorrow morning we plan on heading out to one of the local lakes to go fishing and then head out to Saint Elmo (a ghost town). Other than that we'll play it by ear.