Rolling into Texas on November 25th I was suddenly struck with a harsh reality. There is such thing as cold weather. After driving about forty five minutes, Pepper decided it was once again time to ...well...pull over. As I had just left Louisiana a short time ago I was hesitant to hit the next rest stop but as you all know, when the dogs gotta go the dogs gotta go :-) As well as having the AC cranked I had to have the window up as tight as they would go or the rear-view mirror and windows would fog up. And I mean fog up! Non of this light mist over the bottom of the glass. I mean a full fledged can't see, driving by sound kind of fog. Again, this was for pepper as the humidity tends to get to him after a little while; not because I am sick and twisted and like to freeze my butt off while driving in 80/30 degree heat. Anyway, my usual routine for that would be to drive for a bit, pull into a rest stop, get out of my car and warm up by walking around outside. Yesterday was where the harsh reminder came into play. I pulled into the first rest stop just after the state line dividing Louisiana and Texas and pulled into this madhouse of a gas station where I think everyone who lived in Texas decided to meet for the day. I pulled in took my sweater off inside the car, got out of the car to warm so I could warm up and KAPOW!!! (little Batman bubble there) I was hit in the face with a gale force wind with a temperature attached to it of minus two. much to my surprise... my already blue face and hands were now in full spasm and my poor meatless body was stuck in a position of shock and horror. I would have cried but that may have looked kind of strange lol
Now that I am over the realization that I will come across cold weather again, I can tell you that yesterday was a day of firsts in a few different ways. Great ways, but still so unbelievably different.
After arriving at my destination in Dallas I met up with Joseph; an old friend of mine from the Transrockies Mountain bike Challenge. Of course this was the American Thanksgiving and his family is mostly in Virginia so we decided to make our own (special) Thanksgiving meal. We hit the store to get the basics for a dinner of that size...Broth, eggs, marshmallows, already cooked turkey breast and gluten free chocolate chip cookies. Ok those were mine :-) can't really blame us, it was already later in the day and cooking a full turkey would have been just down right silly. I managed to make an interesting concoction of a make shift cranberry sauce, and if I don't say so myself...It was awesome!! tasted more like apple cider, but hey; who doesn't like apple cider?
Now, here is where the first's come in...actually the cranberry sauce was a first but here is where the crazy firsts come in. Joseph usually goes to bed early and when I say early I mean it. five year old children go to bed later then Joseph lol not joking. So he was off to bed and I just sat down to start editing my next video snippet. The next thing I know he is on his phone calling the Kalachandji's Resturant and Palace to see how late they were going to be open for dinner. This is at eight thirty in the evening. We had thirty minutes to get there so of course, and he said it was really a place I had to see so we had to get there before it closed. He drove. (WOW) ummm....yeah (WOW) that is all I will say. He has a dream of racing cars on day and I think he was his trial run. Needless to say, we made it one time. The place was like nothing I had ever seen. Almost indescribable. The sheer size of the palace was impressive, the pillars and cathedral ceilings alone were immense but not intimidating. Inside right next to the Palace was the little restaurant. They had a a buffet which was just getting put away, however they were kind enough to let us eat what we could and only charged us for one meal. Which worked out perfectly because the only I think I could eat there was the green salad, the sweet potatoes and the green beans. It was a cute little restaurant with no more than six tables inside and 10 tables outside. We were the only ones in the place so we of course choose to eat outside (yeah I know) it was cold, but the experience itself made up for the chill in the air. In the middle of this little courtyard was what looked like a giant bonzi tree. It wasn' but it sure looked like one. I never asked what it was but it was such a great thing to see. I of course took some film of it so I will try to get that on my next video :-) maybe, I am little behind on those. I am still at the beach on my next one. Just can't seem to drag myself away from that area.
The Temple itself was so peaceful. just standing inside the door, I had a strange sensation of being at peace with myself and a strange warm rush came over my body. Could have been the warm air built up behind the door but I would like to think that it being such a spiritual place, even someone who does not exactly practice or participate in their spirituality or way of thinking; can feel the power and the energy from what they actually stand for and strive for. Peace, Love, Understanding, Respect and Acceptance. How could anyone feel uncomfortable in that sort of setting.
One might think that having that kind of experience would have been enough to go on for quite some time. Well, for Joseph and me; it was not.
He wanted to give me a quick tour of this crazy twenty-four hour spa nestled in the heart of the Industrial section of town in Dallas Texas. Hmmmm, My first thought was he was driving to some make out point, then maybe he was going to kill me and leave me in a cement factory but much to my surprise; out of the darkness came this wild and crazy welcome sign with three giraffes sitting on top of it. If I didn't know any better I would have thought at some point throughout the evening I had dropped acid. Trust me,I am still shaking my head about the entire thing. I highly recommend you look this place up because I am not a spa person at all, but the experience itself is something I believe everyone should have. It's called the King Spa & Sauna in Dallas Texas. Now here is the kicker. Joseph knew the front desk clerk so we went in for a quick tour and he introduced me to him. He figured since I was in the Therapy field I would appreciate the healing aspects which this place had to offer. The desk clerk said we could have a tour or just come in and spend the night for free!!!! I was unable to spend the entire evening as I couldn't leave Pepper at the house for too long. But I did want to experience this place for a few hours just to say I did. The unfortunate part about it was I was not able to do any filming or take pictures. Now I have to rely on my memory which you all know is (crap) to tell you of my experience. I will keep it short for this post as it is already fairly long winded. But I will tell you to picture the color Pink, yes that's right...Pink. The women wore pink shirts with pink shorts and had a pink bracelets. The men wore grey and had a blue bracelets and the children wore yellow. I asked if I could wear yellow and the women in the bathroom laughed at me. I don't think a lot of these people had ever seen a pasty irish woman walking around in a pink outfit with a ball cap on lol Not a good look for anyone. I spent most of the time watching people. I attempted to enter the Fire Sudatorium...Wow, that lasted an entire twenty fvie seconds. Great name for it though. My favourite room in there had to be the charcoal room. probably because it was more like an Arizona Summer heat as apposed to the depths of haiti's. Unfortunately my explanations of this place will never do it justice and I will just say that to understand it is to go there and see it. So if you are ever in Dallas or Chicago, or Korea, Japan and China ...do it. Other than the pink mandatory outfit, I would go back in a second. Watching the primarily Korean families interact was a spectacular sight to see. Every corner of the building had people sleeping or doing yoga or just hanging out and talking. The one thing I noticed is they were all doing it as a family. The crazy thing about it (for me) was the kids around fourteen or fifteen were more than thrilled to sit there and hang out with their parents and just talk, laugh or even to just simply breath. What is that all about? :-) I loved it, I love it and I hope to get the chance to spend the entire night there at some point. I have never felt so warm and so calm and so at peace.
Margo
