I am not ordinarily a poolish person. But my friends had also mentioned the unique swimming pool at Chico. Since I was still in the upper latitudes, there was plenty of light left after I checked in. So I put on my trunks and headed for water, winding my way through the labyrinth of corridors from the lobby to the pool. After a couple of wrong turns, I finally found my way.
At 5000 feet above sea level, it was a little high up and late in the year to be swimming outdoors at 8:00 at night. Fortunately, the source of the pool was an underground hot spring. The geothermally heated water passed continually into and out of the pool, so neither heaters nor chemicals were needed.
The area contained two pools side by side. In the larger pool, the water temperature was a comfortable 96 degrees. In the smaller pool,a rectangle maybe 10 by 30 feet, the water was Jacuzzi-like at 104 degrees.
At that hour, few other guests were around. Most of them were kids, and I felt like one myself, restored to youth in a Rocky Mountain Shangri-La. Floating in the pool was easy, thanks to the mineral content of the water, not my body-mass index. I levitated in the large pool for twenty minutes, then bobbed in the smaller for a bit, then back, and so forth. French fries and a salad at the poolside snack bar comprised my dinner. Otherwise my regimen continued as long as the light lasted.
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