Emily and I just finished what can only be described as the most relaxing weekend we’ve ever had. Lounging in hot spring pools, receiving relaxing massages, eating scrumptious meals, and reading books in front of a warm fireplace – that about sums it up.

We drove out to Harrison Hot Springs Friday after work. It’s only a 2 hour drive, and traffic wasn’t too bad, even though it was Friday at the peak of the after-work rush hour. We were able to by-pass most of the traffic in the car-pool lane. Ridiculously, it only requires 2 people in the car to use the HOV lane – and even then it was nearly empty while the other 2 lanes were jam packed! That means more than 2/3rds of the vehicles were single-occupancy vehicles. This was the most stressful part of the trip for me, not because the traffic was bad, but because I couldn’t stop thinking about how dumb our government is foolishly spending billions to expand the highway I was driving on. That and the SOV jerk (his license plate had my initials in it – 415 CRP) who cut me off in the carpool lane and was driving like a maniac. But once the traffic died out, we were in the mountains and nearing the resort, and relaxation was in reach.

The Harrison Hot Springs Resort is gorgeous. When we arrived, we had time to unpack our stuff and change into formal attire for our dinner at the classy Copper Room restaurant. It was a 4-course affair with soup, salad, an entree, desert, and of course a few glasses of wine. The food was average classy upscale food – well presented, with some hits and misses taste-wise. The soup was bland, the salad was great, Emily enjoyed her vegetable main, my salmon was a bit overcooked, and dessert was amazing.

After dinner, we put on our bathing suits, donned the ubiquitous white bath robes, and headed down to the hot spring pools. It was cold and rainy outside, but that only made the outdoor pools that much more welcoming. I was really impressed that they kept the outdoor pools open until 11 pm (adults only after 10) and the indoor pools until 1 am. There are 3 outdoor pools and 2 indoor ones, each at different temperatures. My favourite pool was the adult-only outdoor one, that was fairly warm. There was also a super-hot indoor pool that was really nice.

Saturday morning, we both had relaxation massages at the resort spa. I really should take advantage of the subsidized massages we can get at work, because I felt so good after the massage.

We had breakfast both days in the Lakeside Cafe – which was included in our weekend package. It offered a buffet with a decent selection. In town we ate at Cookin’ Kim’s Country Cafe which had tasty homemade food; the Old Settler Pub which was an awesome bar with average pub grub; and the Lakeview Restaurant which had average fish and chips in a grubby greasy spoon cafe. The town was pretty dead – a lot of shops close down for the tourist off-season.

On the way back from Harrison we stopped at Bridal Veil Falls to do a quick hike. It really wasn’t that challenging (maybe 1 km round trip), which was perfect for our relaxing weekend. The falls were impressive, and I got some good pictures.