Calistoga

I am not sure I get what makes Calistoga so desirable in the eyes of travelers.  Sure, there are wineries all around the area and yes, you can get a massage and a mud bath in Calistoga and there are tons of places to eat.  But really, that can be said of any town in the wine country, with the exception of the promise of a mud bath.  (I had one inn guest in Healdsburg who said "....and I found mud for weeks in places I never knew existed on my body and I don't mean that in a good way.")  As you drive into Calistoga it is a collection of ramshackle, faded cottages that appear to never get sun, surrounded by dense foliage.  As you get closer to town some of the cottages turn into quaint (i.e. old) lodging establishments. Once you are in the town, there are more places to stay here in this town of around 5,000  than one can imagine.  Probably about 50 commercial inns, cottages, lodges, spas, hotels, motels.  Prices from $20 a night to over $900 a night.  Something for everyone's budget, obviously.

But you drive down the main street, Lincoln Avenue, and before you know it you have done the entire town and it is as if you are nowhere.  Or it is like you could be anywhere.  It is a collection of shops and eateries and specialty stores and cute things like dream-catchers but it all seems so unnecessary and trite.  Oh, wait, that could just be my attitude about things like dream-catchers and needless commercial junk.  So perhaps my lack of feeling about Calistoga is more about my dislike of over-buying and spending money (that I clearly don't have) on gratuitous "stuff."

Ah, I feel much better now.  Imposing my value system on a small town is silly.  Better to let the hoards of tourists impose theirs and thus generate revenue for shop and restaurant and spa and hotel owners.  It is, after all, the American way.  Go free enterprise!  Go personal debt!  Go heedless and needless purchasing power of the masses!

Cynical?  Me?  No.  Just in awe, once again, of how the world really works.
      

   

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