One of the best things about living in Davis?
Grandparents.
And 40 miles to Calistoga.
When we checked into Solage on Friday night, everyone asked us if it was our first visit. “Sort of,” we replied. You might recall that we checked in one Friday night last May, to celebrate our wedding anniversary, and then turned right around to drive home about an hour later: Hudson was sick. That stomach bug ended up in the emergency room, so I can’t tell you how happy I was that we were close by. Solage let us credit the cost of the reservation toward a future visit—which turned out to be the amazing weekend that just passed.
I’ve never really had a full spa day, let alone spa weekend; in fact, massages and such things are still relatively new to me (having had my very first at a temple in Thailand on our honeymoon). But I’m a total convert. I get it. (Not that it’s a challenging affection, just a potentially costly one.)
Solage sort of reminded me of camp for adults—lots of individual buildings drawing from a sort of farmhouse aesthetic: board-and-batten cottages with modern elements. It is such a lovely place—set as it is among the hills of Calistoga. We loved the water-conscious landscaping; I especially found myself drawn to all of the olive trees.
Each cottage has two bicycles waiting for you beside the door. But we couldn’t help but take advantage of one of the hotel’s funnier perks: you can borrow a Mercedes for up to four hours. We only left to go as far as around the corner and into town, but it was just far enough to put the top down and try out the acceleration.
The highlight, of course, was spending the majority of Saturday (and plenty of Sunday) with Aron (alone) at the spa. Mud baths are the thing to try in Calistoga, and Solage had their own take on one, called a “mudslide.” Honestly worth a day trip in itself (and I think that’s perhaps what we might try sometime in the future). Seriously, if you live nearby or are staying in the area: once you get a treatment, you can use the facilities (and lockers and showers and hairdryers and magazine stash…) all day long. And the restaurant was awesome, too!
Obviously, we left the camera and the phones behind for the day—except for this one Aron snapped of me on my way to the spa pool. There was a co-ed pool kept at body temperature with geo-thermal waters for us both to enjoy, and then there were clothing-optional sections with steam rooms and plunge pools to enjoy apart.
It was a serious splurge, but I thought the whole weekend was honeymoon-worthy. (And not just because we were kid-free but that, of course, didn’t hurt! Thank you again, grandparents!)
P.S. 48 hours in Napa (a travelogue), Mother’s Day weekend in Sonoma and Napa, and Oakville Grocery.
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