Trip to the Outback

Heather set up a surprise weekend, this weekend. First I found myself at a Calistoga mud bath/jacuzzi/massage, immersed in my first clay-peat moss mud bath in my entire 38 years. The stuff was so thick that you could have comfortably layed right on top, and not sunk at all. Which meant, as our attendant Kim instructed us, you had to kind of scrunch and schmoosh down to get yourself good and covered by the guk. And you can't put your body down too far, as it's blistering hot down at the bottom. We were in there ten minutes, during which, because Heather had the idea of whipping a gob of mud at me, I beat her to the punch, landing a mud loogie in her eye. Kim must have seen this behavior before, because she patiently wiped it out of her eyes and didn't call me a pig. Nice woman. After emerging from the primordial ooze, we showered--it takes a bit getting that claying mix out of the various bodily cracks and crevices--then dipped in the sauna, and after drying, went to another room to slowly cool down under a light blanket, in a dark room with soothing music. Ahhh....

Finally, we were brought to the massage room for an hour rubdown. You know those massages where it feels like the Great Earth Mother is working on you? Mine was the exact opposite, a Kali massage. Rebecca yarded away at my tight tendons like she was going to break them in two and somehow release me to a higher realm. But I didn't say anything, because I wanted to experiment with going at a massage in a different way. So I just went with it, without judgement, and took what she had to give in good faith. And interestingly, when I arose, there were no bruises and I felt energized. Though, come to think of it, it might have been just that gush of energy that follows a near death experience.

Then we stayed at Safari West, up in a tent overlooking the animal enclosure. Sarari West is a 400 acre, mostly African animal preserve, that supports itself from tourists like us taking their tours and staying in the remarkably posh tents. Below are some pictures from our sojourn.

Here's a blue and gold macaw:

And a harlequin macaw:














When I awoke this morning, and pulled down the tent flaps, this giraffe was looking dead at me from about 25 feet (I couldn't snap my damn cell phone camera fast enough to catch him):














And here he is off in his frosty paddock. We conjectured what he might think about having to deal with frost.














And finally, a wild Heather about to attack: