Harbin Hot Springs is a retreat and workshop centre in Northern California. I went there in 2005 for a few days on my own.
Whilst there I had a massage and treatment in which the practitioner told me that my spirit guides were very close to me. She suggested that I went through a process in order to connect with them. There are a series of natural spring pools at Harbin, one of which is incredibly hot and one which is very very cold. She suggested that I spent some time alternating between the pools and spending as long as I could stand in each one and then meditate and my spirit guides would appear to me. This I did and they did. Could one of them have been a potato?