Spa Day

My wife earned a gift certificate to a nice spa resort from her place of work.  Twice.  She ended up with  a good chunk of money to play with at the "Bonneville Spa."

I'm not really the spa type.  It seems I would rather limp around and groan than go get a massage.  But this time, my wife signed us both up for some serious spa services. 

The service thing said we'd start with a hot mineral bath, followed by some sort of wrap, followed by a hot/cold river rock massage.  I didn't really know what to expect here.

First stop was the bath.  I was walked back to the bath area and introduced to my bath attendant.  Bath attendant?  He said his name but I heard nothing, just standing there wondering what a bath attendant's duties include.  Was he going to turn the water on for me or something?   Was he going to break out the loofah?  I dearly hoped not. 

The men's side of the bath area was empty (Donna said the women's side was packed) so he took the liberty of preparing TWO baths for me.  One with hot, steaming mineral water, the other with garden-hose-in-the-winter cold water.  The plan was to sit in the hot water for 5-6 minutes, then submerge up to my neck in the cold bath for a minute, repeat until we're out of time.

I sat in the hot bath for a bit, then walked over to the cold.  My legs went in, and I felt like I was wading in the Pacific Ocean.  I sat in and bit my lip, resisting the urge to scream "COLD COLD COLD!"  I only went up to my chest, and got out of there quickly.  Second time around, I decided to do it right and went in up to my neck for a good minute or so. 

Again, back to the hot water, relaxing, when the attendant yelled in "hey Erik you've got time for one more…I mean if you can handle it."    Was that a dare?  That's how I took it.  In my most passive macho voice I could muster, I yelled back "Oh yeah, one more time would be great."  Into the cold water again, gritting my teeth not to make a peep.  I think the attendant was enjoying himself.  In the end, it felt pretty cool, and I'm glad I did it.

With bath time over, we moved to another candle lit room full of padded tables.  I laid on one and was wrapped up in about a dozen blankets.  I guess the idea was to sweat a lot, but my cold water adventures made it quite comfortable, and I almost fell asleep. 

Moving on, I was scooted in to a massage room.  Half the time spent there was a normal massage, which was great.  I don't know how such a small woman could push so hard on my back; my guess is she used her elbows a lot.  It was actually really nice. 

Then came the rocks.  Two sets of river rocks, one soaking in a hot crock pot kind of thing, the other in a cooler, submerged in ice.  The rocks were pressed (hard) into my back, and run up and down, alternating between hot and cold.  The cold was really cold, and the hot, well she had to scoop them out of the water with a wooden spoon so as not to burn her hands.  It was also a very nice experience.

Afterwards, my aching back felt pretty good.  I think I might try massage a little more often during cyclocross season from now on.