MUD BATHS

While checking in I asked the landlady if she had a recommendation for mud baths where we might be accommodated at the last minute. She heartily pushed one spa in particular where we’d be able to have a shared mud bath (she assumed we were a couple) and offered to call for us right then to make the reservation. I politely told her that she was really not to bother over us; I’d take the list and make the calls myself. If there’s one thing Sue and I agreed upon it was that we definitely DID NOT want to take a mud bath together. I couldn’t even tell you why I feel like that because there are plenty of friends that I’d be fine doing it with. Maybe I just don’t see this as a co-ed deal……anyway I got on the phone at 4:50 and the first place I called said they could accommodate us if we could be there in 10 minutes. We could and we were. The mud baths were Sue’s treat after much argument and she followed here female attendant off as did I follow my male one in another direction. Now if you’ve never treated yourself to this experience all I can say is YOU MUST. It’s a brilliant detoxifier in addition to making your skin glow and you whole body feel positively wonderful. Each spa is slightly different but at Calistoga Spa Hot Springs located 1006 Washington Street, Calistoga, CA 94515 (707) 942-6269 after being escorted to the changing room you leave everything but a key on an elastic bracelet in a locker, take the towel they provided and pad down the hallway. The room itself that I entered was circular with a column in the center with showers radiating around it. The back half was mud baths with the feet to the wall and the heads pointing toward the center. This turns out to be a seminally private affair as no one is laying in their mud bath checking out the rest of the room. The other half were whirl pool (feet to the wall again) mineral baths and in the center quadrant a door to a steam room. Completely naked now you sit on the side of the mud bath and simultaneously slide your entire body over the side while horizontally lowering yourself into the mud. Really you float just under the surface with your head resting on a pillow on the edge of the tub. It’s deliciously warm to hot and the attendant comes around to hold a cup of lemon scented ice water with a straw for you to drink out of while also changing cool towels on your forehead. Heaven! After about 20 minutes you haul yourself back up out of the mud and over the side, trying to scrape as much off of your appendages as you can and go to one of the shower stalls in the center. This shower takes about 10 minutes to get all the mud out of and off of everywhere it’s found its way. Attendant now leads you to a mineral bath that it bubbling like a witches cauldron and you immerse yourself into this. It did occur to me that lots of hidden farting was probably going on for between the force of the jets and the scent of the minerals no one would be any the wiser. For the record I did not. But I did remember when as a child in Ohio if you were in the kitchen while one of your siblings was bathing in the tub, which was just above, often you would catch the unmistakable sound of underwater fart echoing off of porcelain. Just thinking of that noise makes the 12 yr old boy who still lives inside of me laugh. Back to the spa; one luxuriates in the healing waters for another 20 minutes or so again and then to a cooling shower before entering the steam room for 10 minutes. I have to tell you if you have one poison left in your body at this point you’ve been overindulging! After the steam your led to a darkened room where you’re wrapped in towels and cotton blankets (a wool one is an option everywhere I’ve ever done this but I’ve always declined as I’m still sweating profusely). Slowly your body temperature returns to normal and the sweating stops. Interestingly it is a very clean sweat at this point; you don’t even feel like you need to shower off after this. I would like to add that tipping the attendant is totally appropriate. I gave $10 with the total treatment being $60.