This evening Thomas and I are lodged at the Chico Hot Springs Resort. The hotel is over one hundred years old and endearing upon arrival because of the welcoming front staff and quaint lobby furnishings. Our reasonably priced room is over the front desk and down a hallway from the pools. Adjacent to the pool is the bar and as it is now last call (2a.m.) I can hear the last of the bar crowd dispersing. The resort is a very nice destination to spend a burning hot day cycling sixty miles to arrive at sunset. It was sunny and blue and scorching today. Shortly after leaving beautiful Bozeman Thomas and I applied sunscreen to each other's backs. We rode south and our patchy aplications were assailed throughout the day so that we now both have patchy right-hand side sunburns on our arms and torsos. In fact we were so weary after our first truly hot and cloudless day that I have some apprehension about the deserts lying to the south. One option is to do the brunt of our riding in the hours directly following sunrise, taking a siesta during the heat of the day.
Last night we were welcomed into the home of the three nicest and most open-minded people in Bozeman. Jessa, Sean and Jenna made Thomas and I feel welcomed into the hobbit-doored home they live in. We met Jessa and Jenna by coincidence at the Bozeman Hot Springs at a time when morale was low between my brother and I. We had arrived too late to go soaking and were arguing to find a course of action when Jessa approached us to ask if we were lost. Almost immediately we were invited to stay with the sisters after they finished their workday of nannying. We were told that they were part of the couchsurfing community and so it was to be Thomas' first couchsurfing experience: What a wonderful group to be accommodated by! Now Thomas is excited to couchsurf again, probably after his 21st birthday in Jackson, Wyoming. Thank you Jenna and Jessa for showing him the open hospitality that makes couchsurfing work. Thomas had been apprehensive about couchsurfing before Bozeman, MT and is now a changed man by a small group in a liberal city. Maybe the couchsurfing.org website will become the favorite way to travel for both of us in the future, a possibility that I am very excited about.
