I never get lengthy vacations, but throughout the year, I try to schedule little trips to incorporate some fun and downtime into my life,

As I’m writing this (it’s Wednesday 3/27), I’m currently at a hotel about 20 minutes from a ski resort. This was supposed to be my big birthday getaway, but I ended up having to reschedule it. This was a hotel that Mario and I stumbled on maybe 13 years ago and liked it due to the location and the price. At one point it fell to new ownership who ended up totally revamping it into more of a concept hotel. It’s geared to the younger, outdoor adventure crowd and has a camping meets hipster meets microbrewery type of vibe. All of the rooms, in addition to the usual amenities you’d find in a hotel room, have a full size, orange camping hammock attached to the ceiling. Besides getting in some snowboarding on this little jaunt, I definitely planned to relax and the hammock is hooking up. They also have fire pits outside and you can borrow a mountain bike or a Yeti cooler for your adventure. I’d actually consider coming back in the summer sometime.

For dinner this evening, I went to an Italian place we found that same first trip out here. The menu has changed a bit, but other than that, the place looks the same. It was busy in there and I got seated at a small table in between two rows of booths. Of course I was like the only person in there dining alone. Luckily that doesn’t bother me. While I was waiting for my food, I was reminiscing of Mario and I sitting in the booth to my right all those years ago. Another couple sat there now, enjoying their evening. Dinner was good and my waitress hooked me up with free gelato (no idea why, but yay).

Tomorrow morning I’m treating myself to a float in an isolation tank. This is something I always knew existed, but only in recent years had found out there were several locations in my state where you could book them. This isn’t something Mario ever tried, but he would have absolutely been into it. We first kind of found out isolation tanks existed when watching the old sci-fi film, “Altered States”.

The first time I tried a float was my first trip snowboarding without Mario, not long after his grand departure. I really needed something to just help me cope and take my mind off the newness of being a widowed person.

I think the float tank experience is unique to the individual. this particular place has rather nice (newer style) tanks with optional colored lights and chill out music. For me, I want the sensory deprivation though. So let me paint this picture for you: you’re in this large, windowless pod full of water with 1000 lbs of epsom salts (which is highly filtered and includes hydrogen peroxide) in pitch darkness and no sound. Not for the claustrophobic types for sure! I loved it though. It short order, I realized how much tension I was actually holding in my muscles. Because you are laying down and completely suspended in the water, you don’t need to use any muscles at all. If you’ve ever listened to one of those guided meditation tracks that tell you to “just release” your muscles it’s really not easy. But once I got the hang of that tank, I could do just that.

The overall result for me was a profound relaxation like nothing I had ever felt. Also, I kind of lost all sense of space and time and at points felt like I had become part of the water. 70 minutes had elapsed, but the only reason I knew was because 10 minutes before your time is up, they pump relaxing music into the pod to alert you.

I’ve since done other floats at other locations but none were as good as this place. All the other float places made it impossible to achieve complete, pitch darkness and I think that plays a critical role for me. There is something very different about closing your eyes to try to block out light and leaving your eyes open and being unable to see any light at all.

I’ll round out my trip with some snowboarding and I actually can choose between 2 different spots. It may be exercise, but to me it’s relaxing fun. The freedom of gliding over the snow, carving long s-curves down a tree lined trail is like no other. There was a point in my younger days where I used to hang out in the terrain park going over jumps and rails and boxes (and also enduring some spectacular impacts and injuries). It’s been years since I did that though. Not that I couldn’t, but those things don’t really do anything for me anymore. At this point, I just want to be able to keep up what I’m doing for years to come.

Thursday Update

Due to the fact there was heavy snow, high winds and less than desirable road conditions, I ended up at a totally different ski resort than either of the two I originally planned and it’s a place I hadn’t been to in about 14 years because it tends to get very icy when the conditions aren’t perfect (lower elevation and a different area than the other two). Conditions were perfect today and I had a nice time.

On the way home, I treated myself to a stop at an Ethiopian restaurant about an hour north of where I live. Mario would have definitely loved that too. All in all, another great little trip.