Nelson, Ainsworth Hot Springs & Creston

Spent a couple of nights in Nelson in the Kootenays. It's a small town of about 9300 people but quite hippy-ish and trendy. Lots of good pubs and cafes. Friday night we got tickets for a great show called the Cherry Bomb Burlesque. Just brilliant and so difficult to describe. Half dozen girls singing and dancing a huge range of material. Quite saucy, cheeky and hilarious but definately not too rude.

Went out on the bike for another long ride-out around the area. The added bonus of this area is that it's got lots of Hot Springs! We visited Ainsworth Hot Springs. Main pool was about 98 degrees! It also had some wicked caves. Surprisingly large and horseshoe shaped, the water was quite shallow in places and most people tended to just walk round them. The walls were smooth from all the mineral deposits and there were some ledges that you could sit on. The water in there was about 104 degrees which was really really nice!

Moved onto Creston on Saturday afternoon. This is our planned border crossing. Firstly though this weekend they have their 'Blossom Festival' so we decided to see what was on. As we were ordering pizza Saturday night I noticed a 10km run advertised for the following morning. Foolishly I showed it to Chris. Less than 12 hours later we were up bright and early and registered to do the run (how daft am I - should've kept my mouth shut). Actually though we both were very pleased with our achivements. Chris easily beat his previous time and I must've been running on turbo-fuel - Still can't quite believe it but beat my Sun Run time (less than a month ago) by 6 minutes!! Annilated my previous Personal Best from Cyprus days by over 2.5 minutes. Walked around the rest of the day chuckling to myself!

That afternoon we went to a street fair in downtown Creston. They had an old car show and a Chilli cook-off. This is a big thing over here, lots of competitions all over the country and all taken very seriously! Got to sample all the green chillis - nothing like chilli we've had before but delicious all the same! http://www.chilicookoff.com/ has lots of recipies and stuff!

Time to bid our goodbyes to British Columbia, Canada for the time being. Crossed the border into Idaho this afternoon. No problems at all - passed through very quickly and stopped the night no more than 10 miles south of the border at a Forest Services campground. As we drove into the site spotted a Moose! Had a campfire and a few glasses of wine to celebrate a new 6 months of adventure in USA!