We’re almost back on a more direct southern route, this time at more hot springs.  I saw Lava Hot Springs when looking for touristy stuff to do near our route, and I’m glad I did.  The hot springs water with a gigantic swimming pool and water slides are kinda cheesy, but it makes for a pretty fun day.

Again, having warm water to swim in has done wonders for Geneveve’s swimming abilities.  She’s going on small water slides by herself, something she wouldn’t even do after years of swimming at Mt Scott.  And she’s getting her head wet and attempting to swim in water deeper than she can touch.  Either the warm water has a magical effect on her progress, or something just clicked for her.

I think this may be the first time Kim or I have camped at a KOA campground.  I think we’ve both avoided KOAs because it barely seems like there’s a point to camping if there’s a shower, playground, laundry and internet provided and it costs over $30.  But  when the goal is to be near something, hot springs in this case, KOA fits the bill.  Unfortunately it was next to the railroad tracks, so all night trains woke us up, but to be fair, everything in the town is about as close to the railroad tracks so even hotels in town probably have that issue.

In addition to the big water park, the town also has a really fun river float running right through the middle of everything that we enjoyed the night we pulled into town.  It’s not exactly white water rafting, but it’s just exciting enough that Geneveve can handle it in a tube with a parent.  I tried it the first time with Geneveve and quickly determined it was definitely too much for our little floaty toys, you need a decently large tube to handle the little rapids, and probably to exciting for Xena even if she was wearing a life jacket.  So Kim and I took turns going with Geneveve until everyone was exhausted, then we got snowcones to amp everyone up before bed – oops.

The next day we woke up earlyish, put Ubu in a boarding kennel for the day since she couldn’t go and it was too hot to leave here in the car, and headed to the giant pool complex only to find it didn’t open until 11AM.  Fortunately, there’s some hot, made for people to relax in pools as well, so we stopped by there first and then had Geneveve ask us every 10 or so minutes when the other pool was going to open, which made it a tad less relaxing.  Finally, it was time but everyone was hungry by that point so we got lunch – but then we went to the exciting water park.

The kids had a blast.  Xena could barely nap she was having so much fun, and pushed her nap off until very late in the afternoon then slept next to the kid pool.  The kid pool area was a ton of fun for both kids.  There were fountains, slides, hoses, jets, giant buckets that dumped from the ceiling, a hot tub (even hotter than the warm water everywhere else), and lots of other kids to both play with and stand up to when they weren’t playing well.  I think the kids played here for close to 4 hours.  Kim and I took turns going on the big slides while the other watched the kids.  There was even a 3 level high dive platform to jump off if you signed a waiver.  I couldn’t bring myself to jump off the highest level.  I’ve jumped off higher stuff, but only outdoor cliffs where I had time to sit near the cliff for a long period of time and psych myself up.  Here there was a line and everyone was watching and waiting, so there wasn’t the time to just sit and mentally prepare.

This may be the last hot springs for awhile, but we’ll see what Utah holds next.