I was hesitant to inhale as the hot, humid air hit my face and engulfed the rest of my body. A little sniff through the nose brought a tingle to my nose hairs. "Relax, and take a deep breath," I told myself. "Your lungs have to like this more than the cold air out there." Sure enough, the hot, moist air rich with the scent of citrus oil was nothing but pleasing, relaxing the lungs and enriching the skin.
We sat in the hand built, cedar sauna for a couple hours. I listened to the veteran hang glider pilot and the young, but experienced, paraglider pilot swap stories. Stories of soaring above the clouds, looking down on storms, drives to the middle of nowhere, and the feeling of slicing the air in a turn as if you were skiing. I sat back, gulped water to try to cool down, but had to learn to accept the heat. "Oh yeah," I thought. "This is what it feels like to be hot."
I quickly came to the point where I didn't think twice to stand naked outside. It was a welcome chill. With my body core temperature well above normal I came to embrace the frigid break to watch the snow slowly drift to the ground.
Afterwards, I insinuated I was ready to leave for the evening and stated, "Pretty cold out there, gonna have to warm up the car for a while?" He took a quick glance at the thermometer out the window. "Meh," he replied, "it's only zero."