These days, when it is common to make internet hotel reservations for places one has never visited, there is a small amount of gambling to the traveling experience. How lucky we found The Alameda Motel, which is not fancy, but there is a lovely vegetable garden, to which Paul, the owner, immediately gives you free access. Baby carrots, the real thing, still covered with the silt of the Missoula flood soil of this western Montana land.
We hiked up to the hill above, where a view of the snow covered Rockies rises in the east. The little town, struggling for years after it's main resort closed, lies in a a bowl below.
The Hotel owner tells us about the town, while we eat honey sweetened, no sugar, whole wheat cinnamon rolls in the breakfast area. There are lots of organic slow food lovers here, so unique for such a tiny community. There are no franchises. Paul wants to build geothermal greenhouses, and have his hot spring water drain off to have a double use. I practiced yoga in his dome tent, which has a clay floor heated with hot spring water. Lovely!
We imagine the day when this town will come back, as it slowly is. The Zen Cafe will be the lunch spot, and The old Symes Hotel will carry the history. What a cool experience this is, being in Hot Springs!
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