Travel is part of my life these days. I love to put the top down on my convertible and drive down the highway, with the wind blowing through my hair. I am planning a road trip to San Francisco this summer, Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.

Travel in the United States is great. There are so many out-of-the-way places to visit. However, my travel to the United Kingdom was also a wonderful trip.

My husband and I visited England for the first time when our daughter, Pamela, was living in London, while pursuing her career in opera.

We visited all the tourist spots, the Tower of London, watched the Changing of the Guards and saw Windsor Castle. We were even invited to the queen’s enclosure at Ascot. We were so close to the queen, we could have reached out and touched her. That’s the first time we saw Princess Diana.

One of my favorite trips was the day we drove to Bath, the ancient baths of the 18th-century where people would lounge in the warmth of the thermal mineral waters. For 2,000 years people spent time in the hot springs, absorbing the minerals in the water.

Twenty-five years ago, a young girl died from a rare form of meningitis due to impurities in the water. The baths were closed to the public and became a tourist site, instead of a working spa.

While perusing MSN news, I read where a new state-of-the-art Thermae Bath Spa is about to open in June, just 100 yards from the original baths, and marking Bath’s rebirth as one of Europe’s first-rate spa towns. It will be Britain’s only thermal spa. One I would like to visit in the future.

I had the pleasure of visiting the immaculately preserved ruins of the Roman baths and temple during our trip in 1983. It was beautiful, even though it is ancient.

Imagine the days of the Roman Empire, when people languished in the hot mineral baths for hours, with handmaidens to massage your aches away.

Now, the new Thermae Bath Spa will fulfill the fantasy of being pampered for hours at a time.

The four-story facility will have an open-air pool on top where guest can enjoy the waters under the stars year round, with a panoramic view of Bath’s beautiful surrounding hills. The other levels will have a whirlpool, massage and steam rooms for the guest’s pleasure.

Treatments will include mud facials, hay wraps, shiatsu massage and acupuncture, all extra, of course. It will cost about $27 for a two-hour dip in the hot mineral waters, which I feel would be well worth the time and money. However, it might be a little expensive to fly to England to take advantage of the spa.

While we were visiting Bath, we stopped at a little bed & breakfast outside of town that was a converted Monastery. It had beautiful architecture and we enjoyed it immensely.

I will never forget our trip. I hope to return to England someday. Maybe my daughter will be making another trip to London and will take me with her again.

Until then, I’ll do my traveling down the West Coast, which will probably be every bit as interesting as England. I might even find a spa.

Betty Kuhn, of Boardman, can be contacted at bkuhn_1@Msn.com or the East Oregonian, P.O. Box 1089, Pendleton, OR 97801.