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When we’re stressed out, a lot of us think: Gotta go to a spa.
Not a day spa, where you’re anointed, kneaded and tossed back into the cold. No, a destination spa, where you lounge around in white robes and relax until you’re half paralyzed.
Not many of us can afford that kind of spa . . . unless it’s in Paul Bunyan land.
When anniversaries, birthdays and Valentine's Day roll around, swains everywhere wonder where to take their sweethearts to celebrate.
Of course, it has to be somewhere romantic. But what's romantic? To many, it's the floral Laura Ashley look, with lots of lace, patterned wallpaper and antiques.
To others, it's a rustic cabin in the forest, minus the heart-shaped whirlpool but with loads of privacy and atmosphere.
In winter, not everyone wants to get out and enjoy the great outdoors.
Many people would rather enjoy down comforters, hot toddies and a massage. Many people don't even want to look at snow and ice.
And that's possible at many inns and resorts. Some include a spa or dinner theater, others shops and restaurants, and a few
offer a whole weekend's worth of entertainment under one roof.
In summer and fall, festive Canal Park draws the crowds. But when cold winds blow in winter, a brewery suddenly looks much
better.
Now, the complex also boasts a day spa, a nightclub, a dinner theater, a brewery and a coffeehouse — everything anyone could want for a little getaway, all under one roof.
My friend Judy and I drove up on a gray Wednesday in November, stopping first at the Depot for the free monthly antique appraisal. Appraiser Dan Sershon couldn't muster much interest in the plates Judy had brought, but when we asked him to tell us the most interesting thing he'd seen, he looked over our shoulders and said, "That lamp that's going to come up next.''
In 1997, a small-town damsel who married a prince — well, an heir — waved a silver wand over her hometown of Perry, Iowa, and unusual things began to happen.
She took the Hotel Pattee, a dowdy brick building on the brink of demolition, and
filled it with terra-cotta tile, Persian rugs and so much Honduran mahogany she cornered the market for it. Artists moved in
and painted murals and whimsical folk-art lamps, bedsteads and armoires.
Decorators went to work on the Arts and Crafts lobby and library, a railroad dining-car restaurant and 40 theme rooms and suites that honor everyone from Louis Armstrong to the creator of the "Alley Oop’’ comic strip.
In winter, a spa getaway sounds like just the thing.
Relax, rejuvenate and renew. Cleanse the skin, clear the mind. Get rid of stress and enter a portal to tranquility.
Like a lot of women, I thought a spa vacation would make a good girlfriend getaway, a relaxing break in routine.
From the beginning, Hayward has been a rough town.
It sprang up in Wisconsin's north woods along with the logging camps, and its saloons and brothels gave it a reputation that was reflected in a rail conductor's call: "All aboard for Hayward, Hurley and Hell!"
After resorts replaced logging camps, muskie wranglers joined lumberjacks as mythic figures. The fishing feats are enshrined at the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame, home of a 143-foot fiberglass muskie, but the lumberjacks — many of them graduates of the Hayward Log Rolling School — still are chopping, sawing and birling for tourists at the Lumberjack Bowl.
It all began with an enameled horse trough/hog scalder.
It grew into an empire that includes a five-diamond resort, a collection of upscale shops, an innovative art center, a foundation that rescues Wisconsin folk art and, in fact, an entire town that's so perfect it's almost eerie.
That horse trough evolved, too, into such products as the Body Spa, a futuristic shower stall with a waterfall and 10 jets that pummel tired muscles with 80 gallons of water per minute.
