LAVA HOT SPRINGS, Idaho—The Kats! Bureau at this writing is the sitting room at Lava Hot Springs Inn. I’ve ducked away from my father and owner of the business, George Katsilometes. Daddy Kats is roving around here, somewhere, crescent wrench and duct tape in hand, looking for the next odd job.
A couple of days ago, just after a soak in one of the hot baths, Dad called to me, “I meant to tell you, I put a vacuum cleaner in your trunk.”
My answer was not, “Why did you put a vacuum cleaner in my trunk?”
In Lava Hot Springs, this sort of thing happens every trip. I once hauled a queen-sized mattress to the Inn, without needing to know why.
But I did say to Dad, “How did you get into my trunk? Wasn’t my car locked?”
“You left it unlocked,” he said. “I figured it out.”
It has become a habit of mine not to lock the car in Lava. Probably a small-town characteristic. My family in Idaho has been known to leave keys in the ignition, especially in the pre-fob days. A cousin once explained he left his keys in the ignition “so I know where to find them.”
But you are encouraged to lock cars today in Idaho, not just for safety. I was once told that if leave the doors unlocked, a neighbor will drop a surplus bag of potatoes into your vehicle. Merry Christmas!
We took this vacuum cleaner to a local, family owned business in nearby Pocatello for repair. The owner flipped over the faulty appliance and instantly said, to me, “You have the wrong belt.”
“I know nothing of this belt, or this vacuum,” I said.
Dad was already across the store, looking at new vacuums, anticipating this one was (cough) dusted.
In moments, this guy had disassembled the vacuum’s undercarriage, replaced the belt and tightened assorted screws. He worked with insistent efficiency, like a member of Max Verstappen’s pit crew. The belt was installed, but there was more damage than could be addressed during our wait. So, we have a new vacuum, and one still under repair.
This is what it is like to be a small-business owner of a B&B in a tiny resort town of about 400. As regular readers of the Kats! column know, Lava Hot Springs and Pocatello—about 30 miles away—are part of my annual holiday respite.
Until I was 12, our family lived in Pocatello, where Daddy Kats founded the Community Animal Hospital, which is under its third or fourth veterinarian since we moved.
To revisit: Lava Hot Springs Inn was built as a hospital in 1926, and has been in the family since Dad bought the parcel and renovated the building and property in 1988. Where I am now is the onetime “surgical theater,” under an antique skylight, from its days as the Lava Hot Springs Sanitarium. The hospital was originally built to treat military personnel, up until 1957.
It was turned into a nursing home, its status until 1985, when it was shut down and fenced off. Dad took it over in ’88, branching out to seven buildings and more than 30 rooms.
Early in his ownership, Dad drilled and struck natural mineral water on the property. I wasn’t here, but I lore from townfolk is that it was a real Old Faithful-scale geyser.
Within the last year, Dad has developed a bottled-water operation, for Lava Hot Springs Mineral Water, which won a Double Gold for taste in the water category at the annual Proof Awards last month at the Palms.
A case of the Lava water is also in my trunk.
On the property, the water arrives from three wells that pump 600,000 gallons (about the volume of an Olympic-size swimming pool) a day. Some of that water is diverted to the Portneuf River, which runs through Lava and past the Inn, and eventually into the Snake River.
Lava gained fame several years ago when Zak Bagans visited the Inn for an episode of “Ghost Adventures.” Something I had not known until this visit, when word of Bagans’ arrival spread around town and his crew covered the property with black tarp, folks amassed across the street and sang, “There’s something strange! In the neighborhood! Who ya gonna call?!”
Yes, the “Ghostbusters” theme.
Bagans spent three days at the Inn. We had always felt it might be haunted because of its long history of medical procedures, and for those who perished in the building. Bagans famously remarked that the Inn was “a nuclear reactor for spirits.”
That’s true of room No. 13 (yes, we have that at the Inn), where we’ve heard that a female ghost has spooked guests. I’ve never encountered her, but I don’t sleep in Room 13, either. Especially after Zak’s visit.
Spirits or no, the spiritual effects of soaking in this water. It is magic. About a decade ago, the creative team from the original Vegas musical “Idaho—A Comedy Musical” visited the Inn on an extended trip through the Gem State.
Writer Buddy Sheffield, composer Keith Thompson, set designer Andy Walmsley, and Smith Center officials Myron Martin and Paul Beard were among the group crisscrossing the state. The point was that nobody involved in the project, which ran for six shows at Reynolds Hall in the summer of 2016, had ever visited Idaho.
But during the Lava trip, the group held a cast meeting in one of the pools, the team neck-deep in the water.
Just yesterday, a guest told me she’d spent 2 1/2 hours in that water, during which time she experienced a spiritual “shift” in her soul.
I considered that experience. I’ve never spent 2 1/2 hours in any of our pools. But I did enjoy an epiphany after 2 1/2 hours at the Phish show at the Sphere. I didn’t say that to the guest. I’ve learned when and when not to invoke my hometown while in the baths. Best not to shake up the spirits.
Las Vegas is another world from here, an opposite destination from Lava Hot Springs. It is the pit stop I need, whether to soak or help with vacuum repair. I will be back home soon, my soul enriched, body rejuvenated, and mind clear, ready to dive into ’25.
