A few weekends back I spent an afternoon in a sweat lodge at a location that should probably remain unpublished. There are better places to leave a fairly expensive Columbia Sportswear jacket. For starters, somewhere within an hour drive of the city you're living in.

To clarify, I didn't leave the jacket in the lodge itself but rather a nearby yurt. I realized my mistake after getting home and tracked down the email address of the shaman that led the ceremony. In case you're wondering, yeah, this particular shaman has an email address. Everybody's gotta keep up with the times.

He kindly offered to drop the jacket off during his next trip to Portland but, after a missed opportunity to meet up, I decided to drive back out there to save him any further hassles. It was tough to find the place. After several missed turns and a spin on a patch of snow on the other side of a blind curve, I arrived back at the front gate.

Moments later, I was introduced to seven women touring the grounds. Apparently, I'd interrupted a weekend-long, female-only retreat. Ooops. After a quick introduction to everyone in attendance, I muttered "I'm just here to fetch my jacket...that I, uh, left here...ummm...I'll go get it now." The awkwardness in the air? 'Twas plentiful.

I grabbed the jacket, waved goodbye to everybody and made my way back to my car. I wonder what my jacket served witness to during its fortnight out there. It still smells like salmon and, strangely enough, Old Spice.