Christmas in Calistoga

Here is some perspective on how the recession has shaped our travel plans this year:

Dream holiday:
Diving cruise in Palau, drinking kava and visiting the mantas in Yap

Reality:
2 day holiday in Calistoga over Christmas break

Over Christmas break, we usually fly either to Chicago or Seattle to spend time with our families. This year, our flights were cancelleddue to the stormy weather. Rather than finding an alternate way up North, we decided to save our pocketbooks by staying home over the holidays. Well, I put a lot of importance on my vacation days, and insisted that we do something different with our time off. We ended up in beautiful Calistoga, where we got to soak in the thermal mud baths for the first time, and also had a fun time noshing and tasting wines around Napa.

We began our sojourn poking around in Yountville in Napa Valley. We visited one of our favorite chefs, Michael Chiarello's new store, NapaStyle. At NapaStyle, as in everywhere else in Napa, exotic salts are the latest thing. I took a shot of Mark posing in front of a display of pink Hawaiian salt crystals. We didn't buy a thing other than a panini at the in-store cafe, but enjoyed the beautiful store.



Excited and inspired by all of the foodie things to buy at the store, we later entered Bouchon Bakery, where we had two delectable pastries, and Mark bought an enormous loaf of bread. I'm not sure what Mark was thinking by buying a loaf the size of a young toddler, but I have long ago abandoned reining Mark in when it came to his gourmet treats.

With the bread as a third passenger in the back seat, and with the top down on our Mini Convertible, we bombed our way down the Silverado Trail to make our 2:30 thermal mud appointments in Calistoga. Dr. Wilkinson's Hot Springs Resort is considered to be the best spa value in the Napa Valley. For around $300, we got a motel room in the resort, mud baths, hot springs and massages for the both of us. Not a bad deal. With the resort's unpretentious '50s style motel architecture, and the institutional look of the spa interior, I could see why the treatment was on the cheaper end of the spectrum.

After rinsing off in the shower, you are summoned into a large stone bath filled with warm mud. Floating in the mud was like floating in warm jello. The mud had a very gelatinous consistency, but with small pieces of moss fibers thrown in. They pile mud on top of you all the way up to your neck, cover your face with a facial mixture, and put cucumber slices over your eyes. I enjoyed floating in the mud, and playing around by squeezing and flailing in the mud around me. Too soon, the mud bath was over. We were asked to shower off the mud, and immerse ourselves in a bath full of hot springs water while the ladies hosed down the room of excess mud(institutional, right?). I didn't think the hot springs water was any different than any other warm water. Except afterwards, my hair felt like it does after a day at the beach, except the saltiness and stiffness is multiplied by 20X. The massage itself was so-so. But I am more used to being pummeled than being treated to the soft sensual style of Swedish massage.


The spa treatment alone was worth it just to see the look on Mark's face after the treatment since Mark is not much of a spa-goer. Mark looked very relaxed and pink. Mark's impressions:

"All I could think about when I was in the mud bath was that I wanted to scratch my face but could not because of all of the stuff they lathered on my face. I almost fainted several times while in the hot springs due to the heat. The massage was all right. All of the other guys in the spa were quiet. I think they were there accompanying their girlfriends."

After the treatment, we wandered around Calistoga, had dinner (middling pasta) and called it an early night.

To be continued...