Chena Hot Springs

My roommate & I are at Chena Hot Springs this weekend, and I forgot that it's a good weekend for Valentine's celebrations, but here to remind me are couples galore. They are everywhere. Holding hands while enjoying a horse-drawn sleigh ride in the picturesque white nature trail with trees festooned with clumps of snow that look like Turkish doughnuts. Making out at dinner and yelling at the poor servers because the fireplace isn't romantic-y enough for their proposal. Or best yet, having sex in the corner of the hot spring where it's foggiest and leaving used condoms on the rocks like tiny beached jellyfish. Cris and I are accidentally posing as a lesbian couple ourselves, and I don't help the misconception by remarking to another truly lesbian couple, "It was so hot in our cabin last night that we just slept in our bras and panties!" I wasn't lying. It really was that hot, and we really did sleep in our skivvies.

Because I am broke, we have been limited to free or mandatory activities such as walking and eating. Today I thought it'd be funny to take pictures of us in the Rock Lake lounging in our bikinis with the snow and ice in the background. It started off really well with Cristina posing it up like the best 1950s pinup girl. But then it was my turn, and I was on my stomach on the boulder trying to get back down in the water by sliding backwards into unseen territory. I slipped off and banged the crap out of my knee on a rock underwater, which left a nice little hole and multiple cuts where knee skin used to be. Mysteriously, Cris handed me the camera at this exact opportune time, and just as enigmatically, I took it and immediately submerged it under water to grab my aching knee. So now all those pictures and $9 are down the drain, damnit. Well, maybe I saved myself future embarassment for when those photos developed, and I realize that me in a bikini is only good in theory, or steam-clouded fog.