Up at the crack to get to the hot springs pool as the doors are opening.

I wish I’d taken a photo because this ⬇️ was how it looked this morning, but I was so eager to get in I forgot to take a photo (I know… can’t you believe it?)

It was absolutely glorious.  The large pool is about 32 degrees (at a guess) and the warm therapeutic pool is 40 degrees – it felt like you were floating around in a hot bath that was never going to get cold. You’re only meant to spend 5 minutes at a time in the hot pool, but I couldn’t see many people taking much notice of that.

There seemed to be a little community of early swimmers – everybody was saying hello to everybody – Theresa seemed to know the most people.  When I pointed her out to Jodie, she said, “Oh yes, Theresa’s working the room, she even spoke to me!”

(Not my photo)

We had some breakfast in the grill by the pool and then had one last swim before heading back to pack and get ready for the train.  The pool got busy quickly and they roped off a big section for kids’ swimming lessons…. time to go.

This is the original hot spring – you can apparently drink from this pool.  We didn’t.

We got back to the hotel, packed our bags and were nearly ready to go when I received an email from Amtrak letting us know that the train was delayed by 2 hours.  We had to check out, so we stored our bags and went for a walk to find some lunch.  The very next building along the street was the old Hotel Colorado – the original hotel from when the hot springs were founded.

There’s a lot of history in this building and a lot of famous people have stayed here…. Theodore Roosevelt, The Unsinkable Molly Brown & Patrick Swazey just to name a few.

Actually one famous person around these parts is Doc Holliday – he was an American gambler, gunfighter, and dentist!  There are lots of buildings and a walking trail named after him.  He was famous for being friends with Wyatt Earp and having something to do with the gunfight at the OK Corral… and he had an awesome moustache.

We had a lovely lunch in the courtyard as Amtrak sent one email after another letting us know that the train was going to be more and more delayed.

This hotel was way nicer than the one we were staying in so we decided to hang out in their lounge for a while.

There were a couple of 100 year old pianos in the lounge which were very tempting to play…

until I saw this sign…  I’m not sure my 6 months of piano lessons with Mrs Morgan in primary school count as ‘trained’.

When we thought it was time to head to the train station, we made our way back to our hotel to grab our bags when I got another message from Amtrak letting us know of a further delay.  So we parked ourselves in the reception area and caught up on all our admin work…. emails got checked, blogs were written and the time just flew by.

Then at 4.45pm the shuttle drove us over the river to spend the rest of our wait time at the station – just in case the train was able to make up some time and get in a little earlier.

Ironically the train station waiting area is full of clocks!

That’s the hotel just over the tracks.

It was a bit of a shame that the train was late, but if it wasn’t we would never have gone into the Hotel Colorado, nor would we have had the delicious lunch there – so swings and roundabouts.

The meals on the train have been a bit hit and miss in that some of them are lovely and completely acceptable and some have been memorable for all the wrong reasons.  Tonight we both had the salmon which was lovely…

And a not so fabulous dessert….  A woman we dined with earlier said it was her favourite, so we thought we’d try it…. and we did and the best part is we don’t have to eat it again.

We chose to eat in one of our roomettes this time so we could have a little break from people talking at us about themselves without taking a breath…. once dinner was done I went down to my roomette and happily watched the amazing scenery go by.

These next pics might look a bit the same to you, but this was one never ending scene of am amazing light on red rock…. it’s called Ruby Canyon for a good reason.

I mean, how does this happen?

If you zoom in enough you can see people camping here.

And here’s some more – what a brilliant place to camp.  I don’t love camping too much, but I might if it was done here….. as long as there were no large predatory animals to worry about.

Look on the right – is that a manmade pile of balancing rocks or is it natural?

Then the sun started to go down and it was lovely.

Am I crazy, or is this a person?  We were in the middle of nowhere near the border of Colorado and Utah….. and I didn’t see anybody there when we passed.

Amazing!

Goodbye Colorado….. I’ll be sleeping through Utah and waking up in Nevada – then we get off the train in California.  Jodie and I have now travelled through 11 states: New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California.  Then if you add in Florida & Texas from the beginning of the trip and Hawaii at the end – that will be 14 states for me!