Sept 9 - Addendum

I wish I had a waterproof camera. We walked over to the hot pools, which are about 200 yards from the RV park. We had seen a steady stream of people headed that direction, all dressed in their bathrobes with towels slung over their arms, so we dressed like the natives and went to join them. There were a lot of locals and some Germans, all about our age. (The little girl running the ticket booth asked very delicately if we were buying adult tickets which are $10, implying that we might be buying the senior tickets for over 65s, and when we told her we weren’t 65 yet, she gave us the senior price anyway. Cute girl.) So, we were gently heating up, having a desultory discussion with a couple next to us, when a group of about a dozen high-school boys arrived.

“Oh, dear, there goes the peace and quiet,” our neighbors moaned. Pretty soon they all trooped out of the dressing room, 10 of them clad in the rental suits, which looked like they were made of tyvek. Under the watchful eye of the other two young men, slightly older, they all trooped over to the diving board and proceeded to start up the high dive, one at a time. One of the older guys asked everyone to give a round of applause to the rookie members of the local high school ice hockey team, there for their freshman initiation. They had to jump or dive off the board and the best display of each round got to sit out the rest of the festivities. So here are all these old people, lined up along the wall of the hot pool, watching these cute boys strut their stuff. All of a sudden it was a party. Everyone was laughing and cheering on the boys. An impromptu judges’ panel sprung up, with people yelling out their numbers for the various dives, cannonballs, and spectacular belly flops. They did relay races, danced, did a choreographed version of “I’m a little tea-pot” and did a lovely job of making everyone there laugh. Such a deal! For a mere $9 each, we got a good hot soak and entertained thrown in for good measure. And the camera? Oh, yes, they were very cute boys. I would have taken a few pictures.