I was pretty exhausted driving home from Canada on Hwy. 5, had slept 4 hours in my truck, and crossed from Oregon into California, and pretty soon saw the magnificence of Mt. Shasta looming in the background. Somewhere near the town of Weed (heh-heh), I saw a sign saying “Stewarts Springs Road,” and dimly remembered a resort by that name. I used my GPS to get the phone number (it was under “lodgings”), called, yes they had hot mineral baths, so I detoured out into the countryside. Turns out that they are not hot springs coming out of the ground, but rather heavily-mineralized waters from a spring that are heated and channeled into bathtubs in private rooms.
They make your skin tingle and you alternate between the waters, sauna (a wonderful large sauna room heated by a glowing iron wood stove (burning oak), and cooling off. Well, for cooling off, there was a green pool in a flowing stream that had ice on the edges, and, thinking of hardy Finns jumping in the snow, I dove in. And got out pretty darn fast. Man, this was a level of cold as of yet unexperienced! But circulation gets to work immediately and the effect is stimulating and wonderful. I recommend this place if you’re ever heading south from Oregon on HWY 5. $25 for the routine. They also have food and lodging
