Idaho Springs, Colo. — THE first look did not inspire.
Online, Indian Springs Resort had touted itself as a "romantic getaway" with charming cabins overlooking Soda Creek. With my husband battling the flu and our three young kids in tow, I wasn't counting on romance. But I hadn't quite steeled myself for this.
Cabin No. 1 did overlook Soda Creek. But the creek was just a trickle of water right next to a noisy road. The view out back wasn't much better: A broken-down refrigerator rusting in a gravel parking lot next to a smoking, industrial-size barbecue. The bar a few yards beyond looked very neon and very loud.
Too weak to ask me what I had been thinking, John wrenched open the buckling screen door, and the five of us pushed inside the cabin. At which point our little one, Katie, promptly threw up. All over the floor.
So began what turned out to be one of our best family vacations ever.
Idaho Springs, a historic gold-mining town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, is just 32 miles west of downtown Denver but seems a world apart. Clear Creek tumbles through town -- the stream is ideal for white-water rafting -- and the mountains loom crisp and cool. The main street is lined with Victorian buildings, but there's just enough grit to keep it from feeling too quaint.
There are several no-frills motels in town, but lured by those cabins, I had chosen Indian Springs, which is built around an underground hot springs said to have curative powers. Famous folks of all description have taken the waters here: bandit Jesse James, poet Walt Whitman and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Today, the resort is an unpretentious spa (or a vaguely seedy one, depending on your standards), offering massages and facials, mud baths and mineral-water soaks. A highlight for many guests is the "geothermal cave bath," where visitors can dunk into hollowed-out pools of 112-degree water. In this part of the resort, bathing suits are not optional; they're forbidden.
The dank underground caves are off-limits to kids, so we stuck with the mineral-water swimming pool. While John and 2-year-old Katie napped off their nausea, I splashed in the greenish waters with Hannah, 8, and Avery, 6. The pool, kept at a lulling 90 degrees, is fringed by a lush garden of tropical plants. I had to admit it was blissful.
