The great, multi-month search is over. After looking at more examples and models than I can remember, we settled Saturday on a hot tub.

Yes, a hot tub. Go ahead. Call us yuppies (actually, we’re too old to be yuppie). Both Amy and I have arthritis and mine is complicated by some non-OEM parts and a good soak at 100-plus degrees is just what the doctor ordered. In about a week we will be soaking to our heart’s content in a new hot tub on our back porch.

Finding just what we wanted wasn’t easy. They don’t call them hot tubs now. They are “spas” with multitude of jets, sculpted seats, multi-colored lights, cup holders, underwater speakers and even an LCD TV (if you want) that rises silently from one end. Plus our back porch is screened in — an old fashioned porch, not a deck or patio — and we had to find a unit that would fit through a 35-inch doorway. After many visits to many vendors, we settled on a tub from Hot Tub Heaven, which has stores at Smith Mountain Lake and at what they call their “Big Ugly Warehouse” on U.S. 220 and Buck Mountain Road south of Roanoke.

We’ve got to run a 240-volt GFCI line out to the porch location and get it ready for the new arrival but, soon, we won’t mind at all when someone tells us to go soak our head (and various other parts of our anatomy).