Day 45-46: Hot Sulphur Springs, Colorado

When I planned for my early flight home from Pueblo, I had overestimated the time it would take to reach Pueblo. From Hot Sulphur Springs, I was at most three days away. I still had the trip's highest pass to climb - Hoosier Pass, at 11,542 feet - but from there it would be almost all downhill to Pueblo. I decided to spend the weekend soaking. My Friday night hotel room was unavailable on Saturday night, but available on Sunday night; I would spend the intervening night camping in the town's free park, set against the Colorado River.

According to town history, the Ute Indians used to enjoy the hot springs here before the inevitable white settlers took over, and now a private resort rests on the porous hill where the springs bubble up. The resort features an amusing hodgepodge of pools nestled into the hill's cracks and crevices, two dozen of them in different sizes, styles and materials, all connected by twisting catwalks. There were perhaps a hundred other guests while I was there, including families with children. Apparently the springs are a regional favorite. I also counted numerous international visitors, including quite a number of Russians, as well as a few asians.

My plan was to soak and read. I'd finished A Confederacy of Dunces. Apart from the library, closed, the only source of books in town was a small shelf of used books at the local gas station. I came away with a beaten copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, which I'd never read, and I'm now in love with Harper Lee. My mental image of her is a picture of Catherine Keener, who played her in Capote. I was already in love with Catherine Keener; now I'm doubly in love with Harper Lee.

After a day of soaking, I was not even disturbed by the hourly freight trains that run along the gully between the resort and the city park, thirty yards from where I was camping. The same gully is used by recreational ATV drivers, so the trains slow down and frequently blast their horns in warning.

I crawled out of my tent on Saturday morning and went hunting for breakfast. Along the way, I met another pair of cyclists, following the TransAm from east to west, who had also camped in the park.

I was poking around town after breakfast when my chain broke again. This time, I was relaxed and ready for it. I pulled my bike into the shady parking lot of the hotel I was coming back to. I felt I had absorbed enough from the previous incidents to handle it at least semi-competently. Each time my bike breaks, I learned something about how to repair it. Last year, spokes, this year, chain. At this rate, I'll be a competent mechanic in just a few years.

By this time, my hotel room was ready. I checked in, cleaned up, bought a new used book (a Tony Hillerman potboiler), and went for another day's soak. In the afternoon, it rained. The clouds were breaking up when I left the resort. The olfactory effect of the new moisture was dramatic: the water hungry prairie grasses and wild flowers all released their scents, filling the town with an odor like sweet bees wax. I walked through the back streets of town, inhaling deeply. The other effect of the rain was a full, luscious rainbow. Most rainbows that I have seen fade away before they reach the ground. But, because of the stony mountains behind the rainbow, this one appeared to be firmly anchored to the ground.