I’m Glenn, and I love saunas.
I have been enjoying the sauna experience for over 25 years: from my first saunas in Scandinavia, to building my own saunas in Minnesota. The funny thing is that I’m not Finnish or Scandinavian, am Joe American from Upstate NY, living in Minnesota. I never grew up with a sauna, but from the first time I took a sauna, I was hooked. Now is the time when more folks can be benefit from the sauna experience: health and wellness benefits, the ability to escape and replenish, and even the ‘green’ efficiency of saunas. Today is your day for a sauna!
My first sauna, a cold start:
It was the summer of 1985. A friend and I were hitchhiking around Europe, up into Scandinavia. It was an especially cold, wet summer. Our clothes were soaked, our sleeping bags wet, we were hungry, tired, and we were out in the middle of nowhere where the only sign of life was a thick swarm of extremely aggressive mosquitoes. I don’t know how things could be any worse, but thankfully, they were about to get better very quickly.
A Volvo from heaven:
A lone car appeared on the horizon, a first in what could have been hours. Even more amazing is that it stopped to pick us up. I was ecstatic. Finally out of the cold drizzle rain and away from the mosquitoes! I remember squashing with pleasure the few extra aggressive ones that had followed us into the car. Upon hearing of our lack of agenda, dry clothes or any common sense, the husband and wife brought us to their home. He was the dentist in town. His practice was on the main street, their house in the back. Above his office, facing the street was a quaint apartment, conveniently vacant and seemingly ready for our arrival.
A turn of the timer:
After a welcome tour of the apartment, the wife pulled out a couple bathrobes and with a smile and a heavy accent said “you can enjoy a warm sauna before dinner in a couple hours” With that, she turned a timer on a wall and excused herself down the stairs. I looked at my friend John with a look of “can you believe our fortune?” and began unraveling my soaked clothes from my bag. He was busy scratching his mosquito bites. This was to be my first sauna. After a few minutes of the stove clanking away it felt mighty warm, which is all the encouragement I needed to shed my wet clothes and hop in the sauna room. The first blast of dry warm air felt wonderful against my clammy skin and as my tight muscles started to loosen up, I quickly realized that I just found heaven on earth, in a small cedar lined room in a little town in the middle of nowhere. After a couple 15-20 minute rounds, showering between, I felt clean, refreshed, and as an even unfathomable bonus, all our mosquito bites were miraculously gone. Gone!
