Saturday night Sauna

 

Our Sauna on Lake Vermilion

Eric and I at Palo

 

What not to do in the sauna. 

 

Lessons are learned the hard way. Especially as teenagers...who by nature, aren't very bright . 

 

Many of our relatives would gather at my Grandparent's farm for Saturday Night Sauna. Gramps would start heating the sauna mid afternoon, and at times, we kids would help tend the wood stove. Our cousin Dan lived across the highway. They had an above ground pool, and September was a cool month. 

 

Three of us teens; cousins Eric and Dan decided the pool was a bit cool. We hopped on the Honda 3-wheelers and rode to the heating sauna to warm up. Back and forth from pool to sauna was our activity​ throughout the day.

 

Somewhere between pool and sauna we got a hold of some beer. Our teenaged minds thought how fun it would be to sneak the refreshing beer in the sauna to warm and relax. So we did. Sitting there downing a few beers in the heat with clouded minds, great ideas emerged as steam rose from the rocks. Not sure whose idea it was, but the three of us decided beer steam would be an awesome idea. 

 

We all poured a can of beer on the steaming rocks. It was immediate the realization of our folly. We just wasted 3 cans of perfectly cheap beer and our eyes were burning from the haze of steaming hops and barely. The smell was awful, like a burnt sourdough bread - skunk concoction. 

 

Fortunately, Gramp's sauna had a window that opens in both steam room and dressing room. We tried our best waving towels to air out the offensive steam. That really didn't work out well. So we did what any underage teenager would do; hightail it the heck out of there. 

 

Many relatives commented on how awful the sauna smelled. We fessed up as it may have been mud from our 3-wheeling excursions and the Tamarac logs we threw in the sauna stove. They bought that story. If anything, a teenage mind is resourceful when dealing with eminent doom.

 

I believe the statute of limitations has run out. So no harm, no foul. And a lesson that sauna and beer steam do not mix.