Afternoon on the Columbia River

And now, with some color:

After we finished up the bulk of our work for the day, we headed into the town of Carson and over to the Carson Hot Springs for a mineral bath and wrap (20 bucks). The main building is the Hotel St. Martin, finished in 1901. It looks pretty much the same today as it did then.

The building on the right is the bath house (built in the 1930s), and has separate sides for men and women. In each side there are dozen or so antique clawfoot tubs (huge, long tubs) where the sulfur-enriched mineral water is piped in from the riverbed of Wind River nearby. The water is about 117 degrees Farenheit, and you can add as much or as little cold water as you want to that. You soak for about 25 minutes, and then move over to the room where they wrap you up in soft sheets and cover you with wool blankets for another 25 minutes. The wrap is always the part I underestimate (and by "always" I mean the two times I've been here). Being forced to just lay still all swaddled up in a quiet room after a hot bath is pretty amazing. The wrap lasted about 30 minutes. There are showers, a changing room, a sauna…all for $20. They also offer massage (by appt, additional fees of course). Maybe next time.

After our baths/wraps we took a short drive East along the river just for a little sightseeing. Highway 14 ran parallel to some train tracks for much of our drive. I love these side-by-side tunnels (especially how the train tunnel is just blasted, with no finishing touches of concrete):

There were severa; windsurfers on the river as we neared Hood River area, and we watched this guy here cut right in front of this barge. He started to do it again and the barge honked loudly and the windsurfer turned back toward shore. Not too smart, buddy. Not too smart.

We're pretty chill right now. Kevin just got the Traeger set up and we'll be grilling salmon and roasting some broccoli for dinner tonight. We've got firewood, fully charged solar tiki torches, and we may even break out the vodka for a pre-dinner martini. Cheers!