January 2022
I just sneezed and phlegm flew out of my mouth. Gross. Our friend Carrie would say that’s my body telling me I have something to say. My mother-in-law just tested positive for caronavirus. We’re supposed to go to Hawaii next month and I do NOT want to get sick.

Chris is playing the Rolling Stones. I love how Spirit finds ways to talk through music. On Google. YouTube. Sometimes it feels like every search result is magically divinely inspired. Of course, I’ve been building Internet products and websites since before most people knew there was such a thing as a World Wide Web. Since the days of Gopher and FTP and Bulletin Board Systems for those of you who know what those are. So the logical side of my brain realizes that all these search results are influenced by my own searching behavior. I’m reminded of that every time I use Chris’ phone to search for something. Everything I’m looking for takes so much longer to find!

But I’ve also witnessed magical moments when I can’t possibly think of how a search algorithm or any newfangled technology influenced the experience. And that’s when I know we are energetic beings living and connecting in an energetic existence whether we realize it or not. Like when I was researching a topic for this book while Chris was talking with his friend Ivan on his cell phone and Ivan mentioned The Third Testament. A fascinating and unexpected read freely available to download that directly influenced the book’s direction and is exactly what I needed to hear at the time. Or over the radio when my sister Shelly died.

Shelly died of ovarian cancer in 2008 when she was 42 years old. What do you do the day someone you love dies after they take the body away? It’s still at the top of my list of surreal moments. Core memories. There’s no right or wrong answer for anyone going through such a traumatic experience. You do whatever you have to do to get through the day. That day, I went with my niece, nephew and sister-in-law to Target to shop. Which is funny because most of my family and friends know how much I don’t like it. Shopping that is. As we parked, I’m Yours by Jason Mraz came on the radio and we sat in the car and sang at the top of our lungs until it was over. It still brings me to tears as I write this.

I’m not sure what music we actually listened to on our road trip to Crystal Hot Springs. And like most songs that were playing in the background over the course of our lives, the actual notes have been lost to another dimension of time and space until the volume rises again and feelings come flooding back – an anchor tethering us to something deeply rooted inside of us and bigger than us all at the same time.

May 2021
Do you ever notice how the mind plays tricks on you? I’m sure some important event happened a certain way, only to compare notes with Chris to find we don’t even agree on the most basic details. I decided to write this book after a harrowing Airstream adventure to Oregon back in 2017. Not that I remembered it happening in 2017. As I went back through my Google calendar, I had notes about our hot springs trip to Montana and Oregon in September 2018. It wasn’t until we started looking up pictures on Chris’ Facebook page that I realized the first adventure that brought us to Crystal Hot Springs was actually in June the year prior. Which helps explain why we didn’t see the renovation of Juniper Springs that happened the summer of 2018. I wasn’t losing my mind after all. And thanks to Facebook, my theory about disruption of the time space continuum was officially debunked. Just know that if you’re like me and forget when some of the chapters and events of your life occurred, rest assured that many pieces of it can be tracked down on the Internet these days. For better or worse…

June 2017
I’ve always had a fascination with water. Born near the sea and returning to It faithfully whenever I have the opportunity. Somewhere along the way, I found myself becoming a hot springs groupie. Like many whom I have come to know over the years, we suffer from various physical ailments and flock to the water for its healing power. Especially when its loaded with minerals.

Dermatologists are certain it’s the sun that heals my psoriasis. In high school, I went to the UV booth every day. Lathered my skin with baby oil, put on my eye protection and let the healing begin. That was in Frankfurt, Germany somewhere between 1985 and 1988. Germany was a dreary country. Beautiful, complex, historically rich and magical, with an overcast backdrop to it nearly every day of the year.

When people asked why my psoriasis first appeared there, my initial response was that I didn’t see the sunshine for more than three years. My friend, Kristi, pointed out that it’s also when I started drinking alcohol. My sister, Miranda, pointed out that it’s also when Reactor 4 of the Soviet’s Chernobyl power plant had multiple catastrophic explosions necessitating evacuation of the nearby city of Pripyat. The residents were told they’d return to their homes in three days. Over thirty years later, I’m guessing most of them have given up on that. Or died. Pripyat is 1818 kilometers from our house in Bonames. For my fellow Americans who still struggle with kilometers, that’s just over 1000 miles. About the same distance as our road trips from Colorado to Indiana.

It wasn’t til I started writing this book that I also realized it was ground zero for the collective pain of millions of souls who died and a country of people who witnessed it. It’s as if the emotional and physical scars of World War II still shrouded the sky. You could almost smell the guilt and shame, fear and anger, the incredible pain and suffering of millions of people on all sides of the War. I certainly wasn’t aware of it at the time, but through the layered lens of hindsight I wonder if my body tuned into all that suffering. And has been tuning in ever since. In high school, my doctors prescribed twenty minutes of sunshine every day. Which is a considerable challenge to do without a UV booth, even in a sunny place like Colorado let alone a rainy place like Germany or now – Indiana.

Based on the number of people with similar health and autoimmune conditions that I meet in the hot springs, there’s something else at hand. I feel the water and minerals rejuvenating my energy with every soak. And I’m not the only one. Or at least that’s our belief so it’s out there roaming free around the collective conscious now right? But really, if our bodies are mostly water how can it not have something to do with it? Did you know that the lungs are about 83% water? I think the whole body is upwards of 60% on average, but the liver takes the cake at 85%. Until you leech all the water out by drinking excessive alcohol that is. No wonder I passed out after hot tubbing on those weekend snowboarding trips.

After a couple of decades in Colorado and more than a couple of spontaneous road trips, I’ve realized that hot springs are generally closer than any type of ocean. Avalanche Ranch had become a particular favorite. Loaded with sulfur and other minerals, my psoriasis showed physical signs of improvement after only two days of soaking – whether I gave up the wine or not. Some springs always worked more than others. The more sulfur I could smell, the better it typically worked. Isn’t it fascinating that Chris and I now live in a house in Indiana with sulfur in our ground water? Probably should have guessed that after driving through “Sulphur Springs” to get there. To me, it was just one more sign that we had found the perfect place to settle. At the time, I didn’t think of the practical implications of managing sulfur in your ground water when you’re on a well. We’re still navigating that, but in the meantime it’s doing wonders for my psoriasis!

I used to travel the world for vacations, exploring new uncharted territory. Now I travel between Colorado, Oregon, Indiana and Hawaii visiting family. This particular summer, we had decided to take a road trip to Oregon to visit family in Scappoose. I’d been dealing with my latest outbreak of psoriasis since before Chris and I met. So we agreed to look for as many hot springs as we could find along the way and let that guide our route. Our trip would take us from Colorado to Oregon through Wyoming, Utah and Idaho. I began Googling hot springs along the way. The only “hot spring” that turned up in Wyoming was Thermopolis, Hot Springs County. My friend Kristi’s younger brother is in an assisted-living home there. We’d visited on the way to her grandma’s house for Christmas the year after Shelly died. I knew that would be too far north for our route. Utah was much more promising. There were several and Crystal Hot Springs in Honeyville, Utah was right on the way. Check!

Planning approximately a day’s drive from there towing the Airstream (about 300-350 miles) we found another great option for our third night’s stay in Burns, Oregon. Crystal Crane Hot Springs. I decided the Crystal theme was working for us so booked a night there as well. That would put us in Scappoose the following day. I remained unsure where we would stay the first night of our trip until the day before we left. The parents typically stayed in Rawlins, Wyoming near I-80 on their trips. The huge oil storage containers may block the view, but they also protect you from the crazy winds.

The day before our departure, I did some last minute Google research and stumbled upon what appeared to be a perfect out-of-the-way hot spring in Northwest Colorado – Juniper Hot Springs. It would take us off I-25 and allow us to explore a new part of the state. Little did we know what that decision would trigger. You’ll hear more about that in the next chapter. It will help you understand our state of mind as we rolled into Honeyville, Utah in the late afternoon on June 22nd. The moral of the story is – don’t make changes to your plans based on last minute Google searches! Suffice it to say, we were ready for a long relaxing dip in Crystal Hot Springs when we arrived.

I know you’re not supposed to get in a hot tub when you’re pregnant. We have been actively trying to have kids from the beginning of our relationship. Already in my 40s, I didn’t have any time to lose. But I had been spotting a bit when we left Larkspur. So the chances were slim that we had been successful. And I had been let down so many times over the past three years that I didn’t like to get my hopes up by restricting myself anymore. I wasn’t going to miss out this time. I told the young woman at the desk that I would take two all day passes along with our RV spot. “Would you like a slide pass with those?” she asked. It’s $2 extra each to slide down Prospector Plunge. I didn’t think either one of us would have that much energy after being on the road – and non-road – all day. “No thank you so much” I said and smiled.

Chris gracefully maneuvered the RV to our spot in the back next to a large cornfield. The faint smell of herbicide wafted in the air. Once I helped Chris back in, I took a walk with Ginger so we could move our legs a bit. And so I could sneak in a puff or two of marijuana away from camp without attracting attention. It’s legal in Colorado, but not in public places. And certainly not in Utah. On future trips, Chris would teach me how to smoke it out of a toilet paper roll in the RV bathroom through a dryer sheet to mask the smell. But that hadn’t happened yet.

When I returned, we finished setting up camp and I immediately suited up and got ready to head to the pools. “Whoa, whoa, whoa Babe! Slow down a minute….we just got here” said Chris. He worked hard, but he liked to take his breaks too. He grabbed a Marlboro Red, lit up and took a long drag. It’s always amazed me how he can work on a project with both hands while a cigarette burns away in his mouth. Whenever I tried that, I just ended up with a bunch of smoke in my eyes. I had smoked since high school. Another habit I picked up in Germany that my dad had thankfully kept a secret from my mom for over twenty years. I quit when Shelly died. Sometimes it takes a smack in the face to do what we know is good for us, you know? Sometimes the smacks are harder than others.

After recovering from the frazzle of the day, feeding Ginger and getting her bed settled in the front of the RV, we headed down. We checked out the mineral contents on our way in. The owners were quite boastful about it. I didn’t realize it was so heavy. Mostly salt. That made sense. “World famous” it seemed. I always loved when destinations decided they were world famous. I’m not sure what the official criteria for being world famous is, but I’m pretty sure it starts with being confident enough to say it.

We looked at the other hot springs around the world , already planning for the next destination. Iron Mountain in Glenwood Springs? That’s doable! How did they come to pick these places? Were they all owned by the same company? Chris and I had thought about trying to find some hot springs somewhere to buy ever since talking with the owners at Avalanche Ranch who had found a geyser on their own property and dug their own pools. I wondered who owned these? And how much it cost to run.

So many people! It was packed. We started in the baby pool to get our bearings. The life guards were clearly on their summer vacation from high school. We looked up to see a group of six or seven teens in blue shirts. It looked like one of them might be paying attention. The others were fully enthralled in group conversation, likely talking about who liked whom or whatever other rumors of small town life filled the day.

We headed to the cave pool – it was scorching hot! We didn’t last long. We found a comfortable spot in the big pool – with a hot fountain and cold fountain right next to each other so we could move back and forth when we got too hot or too cold. Perfectly balanced. All in all, I think we made it about an hour before we were dehydrated and thirsty and ready to head back to camp. The hair on our skin was thick with sand. Chris took a shower, but I waited to get maximum benefit from the minerals. They became even more obvious as my skin dried. And I don’t shave so it surrounded my hairs, almost like I had a light, soft fur. Super sexy I know. Sorry honey.

Chris grilled. We ate dinner. Ginger got more human food snacks and by then we were getting lots of neighbors. So we took another walk down to the ponds to imbibe on some marijuana on the dl (down low). Imagine me, trying to take a toke sneaking behind Chris’ back while he smokes a cigarette to try and mask the smell. But hey, it had been a hell of a day. And we had survived.