Hot Springs Mineral Bath

Last weekend I went to a hot spring and the water was so warm and heavy with minerals that my body floated without trying. Coating my skin in a layer that stayed even after I dried off, I could feel the sulfur and calcium working. Outdoors and surrounded by rocks and steam, the spring sat around 104 degrees, hot enough that getting in required going slowly, inch by inch, until my whole body adjusted. Staying in for 40 minutes, when I got out my muscles felt loose and heavy and my skin smelled faintly metallic for the rest of the day. Bathing in mineral water goes back thousands of years, to Roman thermae and Japanese onsen, and people keep returning to it because the experience delivers something that a regular hot bath at home doesn't.