THE COTATI SPA AND OTHER SPAS

I have ocassionally gone to swim and sweat down at the Cotati spa where there is an indoor swimming pool, bicycles, pool exercises, a redwood hot sweat house, a steam sweat room, as well as a jaccuzi.

I have recorded and studied Indian hot springs throughout the western US during my career. They are facinating to me. One was Bartlett Springs in Mendocino County that has been revitalized. I love Calistoga Hot Springs and Thermopolis in Wyoming. My husband and I also lived in Hot Springs, South Dakota where we worked as archaeologists for about 3 years. One of the largest naturally heated indoor bathing pools in the country is there. And in the 1800's people were taken here by train from New York City to be treated of their rhematism. It is a town with about 6hot springs. We used to collect the water from an underground spring which had many minerals in it. We also swam outside in a stream where the Sioux Indians swam for many hundreds of years. It is cool and very refreshing in the summer.

I have enjoyed visiting and recording some of the hot springs around the west. Another springs is in the Mammoth Lakes where a group of archaeologists swam during a field trip. We attended a workshop where we learned to make obsidian tools.