Harrison Hot Springs — Musings From the Road

Well now, we've been held pretty close to home this winter. Our plans to go south in January, then back for spring training, and then off to San Francisco for the citizenship appointment at the Italian Consulate last week before immediately hitting the road for Key West as we head around the country. The lung cancer, as minor as it is, spoiled all that. Trying to get preliminary procedures taken care of so surgery could be done in time made that plan unworkable. So, in March we decided to head to someplace neither of us has been, Harrison Hot Springs. It's about 2 1/2 hours away from Seattle and an hour and a half from Vancouver.

The resort hotel is a nice place. Good accommodations and great pools. The main pool is about 83 degrees Fahrenheit, the lap pools is in the mid to upper 70's, the adult-only pools is 95 and a bit higher in some spots, and the indoor pool is in the upper 80's. All outdoor pools close at 11PM, the indoor at 1AM and all the kids have to be out of the pools by 10PM. This rule is not strongly enforced but thankfully we were there a week after spring break in Canada so the place was not overrun by little ones.

The resort has a couple restaurants. The fancy one is pretty highly priced and the menu did not inspire us so we ate at the coffee shop our first night. The food's not bad but it's pretty common. The wine list is short and full of BC wines. The waitress was up front and told us to not order the house label. She simply said it was not good. We ended up heading off-site for most of our meals, and that did not go well. Most of the places are set up to provide meals for summer visitors on a budget or are looking for quick, easy food. We were only an hour and a half from Vancouver and we expected a better selection of type and quality due to that city's establishments.

There are lots of opportunities to go into the local mountains on bike and hiking trails, all close to the town. However, there are no roads around the lake for day trips, only ones that go to the provincial parks and, according to available maps, end when you get there. As a result we spent our time in the pools. By the time we left I was describing myself as feeling like a "dirty water hot dog", pale, wrinkly and overcooked.

I was able to get off to the site of the hot spring when there was a break in the rain. It's about a quarter-mile up the west side of the lake from the resort.

The spring rises next to the lake and is enclosed in a concrete shell and building

The spring is named for the daughter of the man who figured out how to separate the spring’s source from the lake.

Harrison Lake from near the spring source

I've been hassling with this post and app for too long this afternoon. I hoped to get to our trip to San Francisco for Italian citizenship written up but when I tried to upload the screen show, until about 15 minutes ago, the app shut down and I had to start over again. ARRRRRRGGGHHH!!!

So, Ciao for now.