Travel

I have a horny wanderlust, always insatiable, perpetually unrequited.  Oh sure, I’ve had my trips on locations:  from the gentler parallel reality of Canada to the third world intensity of Jamaica.  And vacations to the usual European locales — Italy, Ireland, Scotland, England, France for business and pleasure.  But I want moooore!  Although currently landlocked until the dollar heals, business prospers, travel improves, and fuel cheapens, I can best trip out by visiting friends from other cultures.

Leaving Maine in the long, dark days of Winter and heading west to Calistoga, California's mud baths is a a tempting break this time of year. Calistoga is a precious, tiny town at the top of Napa valley that hasn't changed in the least in the last 20 years that I have been going to "take the mud".  I must confess I am a spa junkie and this place is pretty wonderful – a town of spas all with different mud blends, super restaurants within driving distance, nice weather with dreamy morning fog and wineries every 100 feet. What is not to like?

We enjoy staying at Dr. Wilkinson's Hot Springs, a basic, no frills place. They always have great mid-Winter deals on room/spa specials that are irresistible. The 2-hour treatment starts by being lowered into a large tiled tub of volcanic ash and peat moss with the help of the attendant who then places ice cold cucumber slices onto your eyes and slathers old fashion, fragrant Pond's cold cream on your face. For the next twenty minutes, as my bones warm up with the weight of the hot mud, I can feel the toxins flowing out of every pore, as each part of my body relaxes bit by bit.  As the mud starts to cool near the surface you find yourself pushing you arms and legs deeper into the tub closer to the heat source. It feels so good!

My husband and I were approaching a big anniversary and wanted to celebrate. As we considered lovely and exotic locales, we realized what we really wanted was a touch of wilderness and fresh air that involved no time changes from our California home. The Wickaninnish Inn, a straight shot north to British Columbia, bills itself as “rustic elegance on nature’s edge.” One look at the hotel’s web site, and we both sighed. It was perfect.

Wickaninnish was the name of an 18^th century chief of the Tla-o-qui-aht band of First Nation people. First Nation band is in Canadian parlance what we Americans call a Native American tribe. Wickanninish means, “He who no one sits in front of in the canoe.” Based on our experience, the Wick, as it is called by the locals, clearly deserves the front seat among hotels. From our room, the windows looked out on one side to the Clayoquot Sound and Chesterman Beach and on the other side to volcanic rocks and rain forest. We woke to bald eagles flying by with prey in their talons. One sunny morning, a family of sea otters made their way down the rocks and flipped into the Pacific. A little brown marten emerged from the woods, looked all around and scooted among the rocks and disappeared. At breakfast, a gray whale on its annual migration to Mexico puffed out a big spout of water from its blowhole. 

An excerpt from  "Hungry for Paris"

Some ten years ago, I went to dinner one night with no expectations. A London newspaper had asked me to write about Lapérouse, an old warhorse of a restaurant overlooking the Seine on the Left Bank—it was doing historic Paris restaurants, and this one’s been around forever. I politely suggested that there might be better candidates, because as far as I knew, this place was still a slumbering tourist table flogging its past: it has several charming tiny private dining rooms with badly scratched mirrors—as the legend goes, these cuts were made by ladies testing the veracity of newly offered diamonds (real diamonds cut glass).

The editor was unyielding, so off I went. The stale-smelling dining room was mostly empty on a winter night, and though the young mâitre d’hôtel was unexpectedly charming and gracious, I was more interested by my friend Anne’s gossipy accounts of a recent visit to Los Angeles than I was by the menu.