When people in Pocatello say they’re going to Lava, they mean Lava Hot Springs. It’s about 30 miles, about 20 miles south on I-15 and 10 miles off the freeway. Once many years ago we went there to swim in the 50 meter swimming pool. This time it was to soak in the hot pools.
I don’t know if it’s the same area of magma that keeps Yellowstone going, but there’s something geothermal in the area. The hot springs are hot enough that the people who run the state park there have to add cold water to keep it down to a normal hot tub temperature.
I looked up from the pool at the mountainside to the north. I could understand what my mom means when she says it’s especially fun to go there in the winter, when you’re soaking in hot water outdoors, looking up at snow across the road. Then I looked around some more and realized that there were ridges around more than half the horizon, about the same height. The darn place is a secondhand volcano crater!
We were planning to eat in the Thai restaurant. It was packed, it being Saturday of Labor Day weekend, and we decided not to wait. We went back to Pocatello and had a remarkably good dinner at Remo’s.