LAST RESORT

I had an absolutely lovely time last week. After the election,
it was exactly what I needed.

First, I "quit" my other "job." I use quotation marks for this
because the word "job" implies that one gets "paid" which did not exactly seem to be the case. Thus, my decision to "quit."

I had signed on to update this web site with assurances, but no guarantees, of what I would get paid. I was to receive a percentage of the sales generated by ads on the site, which I was not responsible for selling.

Good – I won’t sell things.

I was given a supposed minimum that I could expect to make every month, and I had a "wait and see" attitude. I also set a maximum number of hours that I was willing to work before receiving a paycheck to actually know what I was going to be making before giving any further commitment.

Long story short, having a while ago reached that maximum number of hours, I patiently waited for my first paycheck. If I divided the money between the number of hours worked, it came to about $.80 / hour.

Um, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t consider working for ten times that much.

So, I officially quit.

At this point in my life, I don’t need another job anyway – I am plenty busy with the job I’ve had for the past five years. There, too, I can work from home, and I get paid a whole heck of a lot more.

And, suddenly, our priorities have changed, as they seem to about once a year.

For a while now, I’ve had a pretty steady work load, meaning that I work about the same number of hours every week, though one week a month is busier than the others. That is the week when everything is due, so my partner and I spend three or four days working together at home to get it all finished.

Now, however, they have decided that they want it in a week earlier.

Ok… But what about that oh so important priority to never go over X number of hours per week? If we are already at the maximum number of hours, then how do we shove more work into those weeks and stay below that number? Well, that priority is out the window.

So, now my partner and I are very likely to get overtime a couple weeks out of the month, then have nothing at all to do for ten days at the end of it. This is weird, but fine with me. As of 3:00am last night, I am finished with all of my work for nearly the next two weeks. And you know what that means...

Time to write!!!

So, last week, in addition to "quitting" my "job" I went on a lovely mini vacation. Since we didn’t go to camp this past year and the year before that was SO far from anything like relaxing, this get away was a wonderful and much needed event.

My partner was going to be in the mountains in Virginia for six days beginning a two and a half year long training program in Tsa Lung Trul Khor, which is Tibetan yoga. This is one of the only places in the country where it is taught, and he had been waiting for about two years for this session to begin. Every six months, he goes back for another training session with much practice in between.

Though in theory I could have gone with him, it just wasn’t my proverbial cup of tea. In order to save money, he slept outdoors in his tent and did a work study program where he got up to make everyone breakfast at six in the morning.

Getting up when it is still dark and sleeping outdoors when it is 22 degrees is NOT my idea of a vacation, no matter how much I enjoy his company or like mountains.

He, on the other hand, loved it and had a wonderful time. I joked that since I wasn’t there to keep him up all night complaining that I was too cold to sleep, he was probably sleeping just fine.
And, I was right.

But what to do for those six days while he was gone?

My mother, daughter and I decided to go away for a short vacation. My mom and I used to go on short trips like this fairly often when I was younger, but since she has owned her own business, she rarely has the time to go anywhere.

However, since my daughter was born, she has been finding more and more time to get away from work, which is good for her I think. So, with a little planning we were able to do it.

We chose a place she has been wanting to take me to for about ten years now. Out in the middle of nowhere in Indiana is the tiny little town of French Lick. Once upon a time, it was home to twenty-six different resorts and was a Midwestern hot spot for wealthy vacationers. Today it is hard to imagine, but at the beginning of the last century people flocked there in droves.

Ostensibly, it was the mineral springs which brought them there. For health reasons, people would soak in the baths, or even drink the Pluto Water which, among other things, purported to be "America’s Laxative."

When The Depression hit, all but one of these resorts went out of business. French Lick Springs Resort was able to stay open and is still open to this day. It was the first resort to open there and has been the one which endured.

In the past decades, it has undergone restoration which has enabled it to look as it did a hundred years ago. Back then, only the very, very rich could afford to stay there and it is an absolutely beautiful building. Presidents, gangsters, movie stars – all of them came to French Lick many years ago to rub elbows and soak in the mineral springs.

It sits on 2600 acres which butts up against the Hoosier National Forest. There are stables, horses, trails, indoor and outdoor tennis, carriage rides, two golf courses, horseshoes, volley ball, billiards, bowling, indoor and outdoor pools, a hot tub, and of course, the spa.

Always known for its mineral baths, French Lick Springs Resort still offers them straight from the spring. Now, though, one can also get a facial, mud bath, massage, pedicure, foot rub, hot stone treatment, manicure or paraffin soak.

My mother and I had a fabulous time. Though I couldn’t do the hot bath or go horseback riding (two things I would have loved to do), I was able to console myself with a very relaxing facial and a long dip in the indoor pool.

My daughter had a wonderful time as well. The halls are long with patterned carpet and wallpaper, not to mention all of the chandeliers hanging from the ceilings. Babies love stuff like this – she was absolutely mesmerized.

Then, there were lots of people for her to smile at and talk to, which she also very much enjoys. She loved the horse who pulled our carriage and promptly fell asleep rocking back and forth on the long gravel trail.

The highlight for her, though, was the pool. It is enclosed by a huge glass dome which is on rollers so that it can be opened in the summer. She had never been swimming before, but knowing about the pool before we left, I made sure to get her a bathing suit.

She had a blast. Though a bit suspicious at first, as soon as she figured out that it was just one giant bathtub, she had a great time. She paddled, she kicked, she sang as loudly as she could to hear her voice echo inside the dome. Thankful for the wonders of modern technology, we video taped the whole thing so that my partner could see it when we returned home.

We then traveled about a mile up the road to the only other standing resort still left in the town of French Lick. West Baden Springs Hotel is truly an architectural masterpiece and really needs to be seen to be believed. My mother had been telling me about it for years, but I still gasped when I saw the place.

Both French Lick Springs and West Baden are absolutely huge, which when you’re in the middle of nowhere in Indiana, is just sort of visually surprising in and of itself. However, West Baden is just overwhelmingly beautiful and not the kind of building which one is likely to encounter anywhere.

When it was built, West Baden was the largest free standing dome in the world. The guestrooms faced toward the center of the dome, and at times the owner had entertainments like circuses in the middle of it for the guests. The fireplace at one end is so large that I could stand inside of it without ducking. The central room is just unbelievably HUGE – it is a space for the sake of noticing space.

Unfortunately, West Baden didn’t fare as well during The Depression as its illustrious neighbor down the street. In 1934, the Jesuits bought the place for one dollar.

Eventually, West Baden was abandoned and began the long decades of inevitable decay. Walls crumbled, windows broke, floors collapsed. In the nineties, it was taken over by an Indiana historical society and eventually an investor was found to help take on the cost of refurbishing it.

Thirty-eight million dollars later, West Baden is once again beginning to regain some of its past glory and is open for tours. For quite a while it was for sale, but rumor around French Lick says that someone has bought it but is keeping the deal kind of quiet.

Having been there, I can say that they are working on restoring the guestrooms now and claim that they will be open for business in 2006. My mother has said that she doesn’t care if rooms are five hundred dollars per night, she’s staying there as soon as they’re open.

French Lick really is a tiny, tiny town – there is absolutely nothing there. However, Donald Trump is apparently building a casino there, due to also open in 2006. It will be right next to the French Lick Springs Resort, actually taking up about three acres of their golf course.

Though in a way it seems like a casino would damage the small town quiet charm of the place, without something like that to attract people, the town is just going to wither up and die. If people don’t go there, then these beautiful resorts are likely to go the way of the Dodo, and that would be really sad.

I am SO ready to go back and stay for a week. This was the first time that I had ever been to a real resort or spa and it is definitely something that I could get used to. We’re planning a trip back in May, this time taking my parents, my partner, his mother, my grandmother and our daughter. I am so counting the days…

According to one of the ladies who worked in the spa, they are always looking for massage therapists in the summer, especially on the weekends. I’m trying to talk my partner into working weekends there, mostly to support my resort habit, which I am hoping shortly to acquire. I could very, very happily stay there every weekend and would even promise not to run up a huge room service bill.

Although we had very different experiences on our simultaneous but separate vacations, both my partner and I had a wonderful time. Though part of me felt almost guilty floating around in a heated pool while he was somewhere shivering in the mountains, both of us were doing what made us happy.

But we were both VERY happy to be home and with each other again. I may go with him during one of his training sessions and stay in one of the little mountain towns which dot the area in Virginia, though NOT if the plan is to stay in a tent. He, too, is looking forward to the trip to French Lick in May to see this place about which I rant and rave.

Ah, vacation. I certainly understand why Europeans take six to eight weeks for vacation every year. Now that is a lifestyle I could live with.