I’m afraid when you’re hiking a great distance you become use to being dirty. You always smell. People think you’re a bum (while we may not have a home in a conventional sense, we are not homeless). Sometimes you don’t get to wash clothes for weeks. Nevertheless, it is always nice to freshen up when you can.

The hotel at Old Faithful in Yellowstone is beautiful. It’s an old and large wooden building, a pyromaniac’s dream. Pudgy tourists stroll the halls, clean and spotless. Hikers become self conscious in their crusty shirts and you put on Gore text jackets to contain the smell.  No matter how hot it is.

The main lobby in the Old Faithful Inn.

While at the buffet in the restaurant (a-must-stop when thru hiking. No matter what, you always stop for buffets),a server came up to our table and told us to go to the front desk for a shower. Say “Carla” sent you. Thinking it would probably be a grungy employee bathroom, we weren’t too excited. But we still went. Little did we know what awaited…

Having a bubbly in a bubbly.

We were given the ‘Tub Room’. There was an old fashion bathtub with a selection of soaps, shampoo, and lotions. And so, we had our first bath in over 6 months (Don’t worry. We still have showers. At least every couple weeks…). We even had a beer.  It was tubendous!

However, I must admit that the next 15 miles to camp were rather unpleasant. I would not recommend going to a buffet and having a bath before hiking. You become kinda sluggish.