Taking the Waters

Upon arriving at what was pitched as a resort in their marketing materials, we found we had the opportunity to swim in the “rejuvenating” hot springs. We could choose between the public pool ($9 each) or a private room for an additional $2. One look at the private room (scary, little prison cells) convinced us to save the surcharge. The hot springs (a big cement pool) has an exceedingly high woo factor. Most everyone in the public area was under 15 or over 65. Just as we were wondering which one of has had “Go ahead, charge us $9” stamped to our forehead, we were saved by a great chat with a fascinating woman. Lynn, who had 3 kids and was widowed by 25, married a man with 5 kids, then had two together. She now has 40 grandchildren and 15 great grands. They lived for 15 years, till he died, leasing 35,000 acres from the Bureau of Land Management. Their home was 12 miles off the nearest road (those 12 miles took 45 minutes to negotiate), but they had tons of visitors. She once went 17 days without preparing a meal for less than 30 people. Her husband testified before Congress about the amount of space needed to raise cattle. One Congressman, from New Jersey, didn’t believe him (in Jersey they had 15 cows per acre), so he invited him out and the Congressman took him up on the offer! They ran the poor man and his three companions into the ground – 13 hours in the saddle in one day. The Congressman later apologized in front of Congress for calling Lynn’s husband a liar. Learned a neat thing about cattle: a head of cattle is one mother cow, her offspring, and the bull it takes to service her. So their 400-head ranch could have easily had as many as 800 animals at one time. Interestingly, Lynn was a distant relative of one of the original six founders of Hartford, Merriam, of Merriam Webster Dictionary fame.