Monday, April 30, 2012

Fairmont Hot Springs

Last week, we met my parents in Fairmont for almost a week.  It was a great time to get away, and we were excited....and packed to the ceiling!
 The Girls always love a road trip, and this one was no exception! 
 The first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains is always exciting!
 It was a beautiful day for a drive!
 My Mom and I went for walks every morning, and the view of the valley was spectacular!
 We also took the Girls on a few hikes, and went geo-caching as well.  This river has the run off from the hot springs, so you can see the water is chocked full of minerals.
 We also had an Easter Egg Hunt in the trails, which was fun.
 This little waterfall was from the hot springs, so it was warm water that was coming down.  We were determined that we would go swimming in it, but that was another day!
 Instead, we just walked around it during this hike.  It was about a 7 minute walk from the condo we were staying in.

 Beautiful!
 
 This is the view from the hot springs, where we did pay the $70 (WHAT?!!  Can you say rip off?!)for us to go swimming.  It was a total rip off, and my Dad was quite worked up that they wouldn't let our family in for the family rate....but that's another story.  Really, a family is a family, right?  No matter how many kids you have....  Anyhoo, it was great fun and Hannah jumped off the high diving board on her own accord without even telling us she was going to and we all got very sunburned even though it was only 12C. 
 We also went for a number of walks, many of which included hunting for golf balls (staying on a golf course has it's privileges!) - I think we ended up with around 40!; going for ice cream, chasing deer and looking through old barns.  None of which I had my camera for... 
 We also took a drive down a scary logging road to Lussier Hot Springs.  It was well off the beaten track, but kinda cool to see.  The first little pool had water at about 110, the second was about 95, and the third was around 85.  And the river?  That was cold!  It was neat to see the water trickling out of the side of a mountain, and feel how warm it was!
 
 We finally made it back to the waterfall by our place, and it was great fun to go and swim under it.  We thought that the pool was about 10 feet deep, but it turns out it was only about 4 ft. deep, so all the Girls could stand.  That was one of the highlights for me....swimming under a warm waterfall!
 Fairmont really is a beautiful place to visit!  And during this time of year, it was fairly quiet, so that was nice!
Here's my parents with the Girls....
 The last day we were there, it poured rain, complete with thunder and lightening....our first storm of the season! The Girls were happy to play outside in the rain, until the lightening started!

It was so great to get away, relax, be outside.... a great little holiday!  We played games, enjoyed this beautiful country that we live in, ate, hung out....Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the fun times!

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