back from calistoga

As per usual, Indian Springs was awesome. Did the hot mud bath, which consists of well, getting naked, and laying down in hot mud that sends your heart rate soaring for about 10 minutes or so. After that, you sit in an old fashioned clawed tub (they started building Indian Springs in 1913 - go to http://www.indianspringscalistoga.com if you want to know more about the place) full of cool mineral water,  getting the mud out from under your fingernails and sipping a cup of  ice water that's flavored with cucumbers and lemon. After that, you spend about 10 minutes in eucalyptus infused steam room, shower, put on your robe, and they put cucumbers on your eyes and a cool rag on your head until the massage tech - (the mud bath was free, but I opted for a full session of deep tissue massage) - comes to torture you further.

California is in the midst of the rainiest winter I've been in since arriving in 2007, and it was interesting to float in the big hot pool - they had it cranked up to 102 with the air temps and the rain... while being pelted with cold rain. The Napa Valley was breath taking in the rain and fog, and a couple of the higher peaks had snow on them. As low as the Coastal Ranges are - and as mild as Napa is during winter - I was really surprised to see some snow, but Calistoga is at the northern end of the valley, and the mountain was on the east side, which is the colder side of the valley (the Pacific is to the west). Its amazing how many microclimates California has.

The upside of all of this rain is it fills reservoirs and the snow on the Sierras keeps us in water until next winter. Its been awfully dry the past few years. Also, paradoxically for those of you that live in four season climates, it gets green here in the winter, and the longer/more it rains, the greener it stays into summer (and it also reduces the fire hazard lots).

Now back to the grim reality called work. But the sciatica is better...