The Chipmunks & Hot Springs

On Friday, I went on a Relief Society retreat up in the mountains near Rye. It was really fun, and being outside made me want to take the boys on a little adventure. The youth in our ward went to the Mt. Princeton hot springs earlier this summer, so after coming home on Saturday I decided to take the boys there. We drove for about an hour and a half (which felt much longer since I had only gotten about 3 hours of sleep the night before), found the springs, and kept going to a little ghost town called St. Elmo. Not a lot there except for some old western buildings and the chipmunks. On the wood pile across from the old store, you can find a bunch (20-30ish) of friendly chipmunks. If you bring them black sunflower seeds, they will climb right into your hand to eat. Or across your back as I found out. The boys loved it--especially when they ran up their legs or arms. Josh did really well sitting still for them, but Jake got bored and soon tried to scare them. They don't scare easily though so we still had a good time. One chipmunk even growled at me which made me scared! I've never heard a chipmunk growl before.

We left St. Elmo's and backtracked to the hot springs. Mt. Princeton has a resort with 3 pools (one was 102 degrees and the other was 95 degrees), a slide (which I did not mention to Josh as it cost extra), and my favorite part--the river. They pour water from the springs through pipes directly into the river. It mixed with the really cold water and you can find little sitting pools at just about any temperature from scalding to freezing. It was a really fun afternoon. Jake now wants to go back and feed "Alvin and the chipmunks."