I had just exited from one of the dryest enclosures in the world - an airplane - to return to one of the dryest winter cities in the world - Winnipeg. My day started in San Diego, with a pitstop in Denver, and two plane rides later it was time to go through customs.

Needless to say, after such a long, dry day, my hair was jetlagged.

I walk towards the stern-faced Canada Customs and Immigration Officer. 

The other day, I went to a salt cave, which apparently has healing properties. So, I guess you can say I got cured in salt. After which, I got a massage – Thai style.

Well put me on the menu, because I sound like a tasty dish – or at least a cheesy one.

That said, if you’re not in the mood for cheese, but perhaps more in the mood for a day of relaxation, you too could try a trip to a salt cave.

As a Sambassador for Samba Days gift experiences, I’ve tried many things: ziplining, haute cuisine, DJing wiki-wiki-style, bed and breakfasting, flying a plane dangerously close to the CN Tower … So as you can certainly appreciate, I desperately needed a little pampering. And when getting pampered, why not bring along the lady who used to change your poopy Pampers.

Sometimes I wonder if Samba Days should be called Date Nights. Because if it weren’t for them, I don’t know if I'd ever go on a date.

To be fair, I don’t always call going out with my guy a date.

If, for instance, we’re just going to one of our regular joints for supper, is that really a date? Or is it just a night that I’m not cooking supper?

Put down the straightening cream, step away from that flat iron, and come join me as I declare October to be …

Natural Locks’tober!

It is estimated that more than 65% of women have naturally curly or wavy hair. According to observation, the numbers appear much less.

The multi-billion-dollar hair-straightening market (in the U.S. alone) helps hide this, but it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

By a show of hands, how many of you need a break?

See, I don’t even need to see your hands, and I still know that about 90% of you need to get away, another 9% need to finally admit to yourselves that you need to get away, and the rest of you – the 1% – well, you can get away at the drop of a $1000-bill.

Now I’ve wanted to go on vacation for so long, but never really had the time, until, as a Sambassador for Samba Days, I was offered a Gourmet Getaway. And so I cleared 36 hours from my schedule, because everyone needs a 36-hour vacation.

I often say my hair is more of a landmark than a style.

People know me for my hair. When it’s pulled back, it’s almost as if I’m incognito.

Blonde (and blonder) corkscrew curls seem to burst out of my head from every direction – controlled  chaos. I don’t try to control how my hair lands, but I do try to control how big it goes.

You know, the bigger the taller. After all, I’m only five-feet, well five-four if you include my hair.

Samba Days gave me an Action and Adventure gift experience. So I decided to fly a plane over Toronto, perhaps making it more of an experience for the city of Toronto. And I may or may not have flown illegally close to the CN Tower. Watch.

_Sometimes I wish I were a man so I wouldn’t have to make supper. And then I realize if I were that guy without someone to cook for me I’d probably resort to foodstuffs – like ketchup – for supper.

So sometimes you just have to treat yourself, or sometimes you’re lucky enough to have Samba Days treat you to a gift experience.

And for those of you who are so practical that you’d rather put that money to the hydro bill than treating yourself, your friends can get you a Samba Days gift experience for Christmas, forcing you to put yourself before the electricity.

_I am afraid of everything. But, I am not afraid to do anything.

It’s funny, when Samba Days gave me the opportunity to select from its seemingly endless list of gift experiences, rather than choose from categories such as Wine, Gourmet, Getaway, Body and Soul, or Life and Culture, I found myself choosing from Explore and Adventure.

Yes, I passed up the opportunity for delightful spa treatments and tasty pampering experiences to harness myself to a cable 35 feet above the hard, rocky ground, and wear (an impressively disinfected) helmet that may not have been conducive to maintaining my hairstyle, but was beneficial in making me feel like a stunt-double in a Michael Bay movie.