This photo was taken by a good friend of mine on a long anticipated trip to a local hot spring. This is my favorite pool, because often hot springs can be much too hot for me. In this case, when I first tried it, it did in fact seem to hot. But, this particular pool, which is man made and designed to capture naturally occuring hot water, was created near a small cold-water stream. The pool's temperature can be changed by removing a blockage from the cold-water intake from the stream to regulate the temperature. On this day, in particular, I decided the pool was much too hot, and removed the blockage and my friend and I took a rather lengthy hike. When we returned the pool had definitely cooled down - way too much! But, because the day was very hot, and we had been out hiking in it, I decided not to let that stop me and stopped and jumped right it - it was quite a temperature shock, in a pleasing sort-of way, and at the same time my friend snapped the photo. I think it captured the emotion of the moment, perfectly.
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