The Nude Life

Lo and behold the front page of The New York Times Web site today, where a 2-page color cover story in the Sunday Travel section highlighted the growing industry of nude travel and nude resorts.

The cover shot is of the main pool at Hidden Beach Resort and some guests playing nude water volleyball, one of the prime mid-afternoon activities at that lovely resort and one which I have enjoyed for many delightful hours. The accompanying photo gallery of shots from other resorts including the beautiful new Mira Vista Resort and Spa outside Tucson in Arizona are quite revealing, especially for a mainstream family newspaper.

Overall, a good article, ignoring the common mistake of labeling naturists as “naturalists” and the reference to Sea Mountain Inn as a legitimate nudist resort (it is not). This kind of ‘exposure’ can’t do anything but help bring the idea of taking a ‘nakation‘ to the minds of the several million Sunday Times readers this weekend — just ahead of a long, warm summer in the US. Millions more Web site readers will also be let in on the little secret we nudists have enjoyed for many years: once you take a nude vacation, no other kind of vacation measures up.

Big thanks to AANR for working with the Times reporters on this story for many months.

Our dearth of postings over the past few weeks can be explained by a goodly amount of business travel that has kept us away from the blog, but mainly it’s been that we have been very, very busy making all the arrangements to make our move to Cypress Cove near Orlando in a couple of months to start the nude life full-time.

We’ve been getting a real education in Florida’s homeowner’s insurance market (which was ruined by state meddling); in the Florida mortgage lending meltdown as the housing bubble bursts there and elsewhere; and in a couple of dozen other things we’ve had to arrange to make things happen for our new life as full-time nudists living at Cypress Cove.

I’m happy to report that everything is on track, and we have figured out a neat way around the mortgage mess as well as landing some reasonable insurance coverage. We anticipate closing in mid-May, and moving there from our home in Texas soon after, hopefully by June or July.

Now all we have to do in the meantime is quit our jobs, sell our house here, give away or sell 90% of everything inside it, and move. Figuring out what we can fit from our 3,800-sq.ft house into a single 8′ x 8′ x 16′ PODS moving unit is going to be interesting, too!

We know it will be worth it. Our nudist friends here who have asked about our plans are envious of us already, and we can’t help getting excited by the adventure, fun and freedom that will accompany this life-changing shift in location and lifestyle. Breaking the news to our few remaining relatives and friends (all of whom have no idea at all that we are nudists!) will come when it has to: never, if they don’t want to come visit us (which most won’t), and honestly and without shame for those who do.

I’m very glad to have had our guest bloggers Steve and Angie posting some new items during my slowdown in posts, and I hope they have a great time at Haulover Beach this coming week. Let’s hope they post some reports from their visit and perhaps a few vacation snaps as well!

Meanwhile, The Nude Life Forum still has regular visits and posts from nudists all over the world. If you haven’t checked in lately, by all means drop in again soon and let us know what’s on your mind! And, happy Spring Equinox to all those in the Northern Hemisphere! Summer will be here soon!

What if there was a beach used exclusively by blind nudists?

In the minds of many, it’s not the fact of nudity that is so shameful, it’s being seen naked that is bad. It’s the sight of the body that God gave us that leads to sin and debauchery.

So, what if everyone’s blind? Would that be OK?

I mean, if seeing the ‘naughty’ parts leads people astray, then not seeing them should be pretty safe, it seems.

I’ll have to run that one past Rev. Ralph if I ever run into him. Nah, he’d just say that even feeling good is evil. I saw a bumper sticker that said: “I like your Christ. I don’t like your Christians. They are so not like your Christ”. The wackos have given good people a bad name. That’s wrong.

This guy is the epitome of that idea. Pure hatred. Sad that good folks should have to be associated with this disgusting vermin.

And that’s the gist of it, isn’t it? We just have too darn much fun running around nekked and they can’t stand it. There must be something sinful behind it because they know that if they tried it they’d instantly be turned into lustful fornicators and have to roast in Hell forever.

OK, that’s not fair. Most people just think we’re weird, maybe a bit twisted, and they have no interest to try. That’s all right, I feel the same way about Republicans.

I’m not a Christian, but I do ask “what would Jesus do?” Because, to me, Jesus represents the best of human behavior, and a good example to follow.. To use His name to attack the innocents, in this situation, us, disgusts me.

Guess I kinda got off an a rant there, huh?

Would love to hear from blind persons, get their perspective on this. I mean, for them porn is sound and not image, skin color doesn’t exist but voice does. Nudity would be a totally sensory experience, Probably more so than for the sighted. Yet I have yet to meet a blind nudist.

That’s it.

- Steve

Woo woo!  We’re going to Haulover Beach!  If everything works well we’ll be there the 26th thru 28th of March, a long needed respite from this goddamn frozen hellhole of Wisconsin.  Pardon the language but this has been one awful winter.

Thanks to Angie’s new airline job, we get lots of free air travel and are damned intending to use it!   First stop, Miami Beach! 

Got a hotel 125 yards down the beach from Haulover, plan to get decently sunburned.  If we don’t, it’s our own fault.  Like I told Angie, we don’t have much money but we can go where the rich folk do!

We’ve gotten so sick and tired of winter that we were ready to move South

 to escape it.  That means leaving family and grandkids behind, not so good.  With her new job, and occasional escapes to places warmer perhaps we can hold on a few years longer.  We’ll see.

We still long to move to a nudist community where we can be us most of the time.

Like I said, we’ll see.   Ah, for a perfect world… 

- Steve

P.S. - To our Northern friends, we won’t be there long enough to send postcards, but we’ll be thinking of you!  Ah, actually, probably not .  Sorry about that…  ;-)  

This is the story of Skippy. A now 10-year-old shelter dog who ended up with my husband Steve as a puppy. I met Skippy shortly after meeting and falling in love with Steve. I am now his adoptive mother and have an ongoing love triangle with him and his father (Steve).

I really don’t know sometimes which one I love more (sorry Steve)!Skippy is our ever present companion at camp and Mazo Beach and all who know him have also fallen in love with him. I don’t know if nudists just tend to like animals, but we have found most or all are true animal lovers.

When the sand is hot the volleyball players let us know and we would try to run Skippy down the sand to the water as quickly as possible to avoid burns to his paws. We noticed that the volleyball players, albeit nude, wore socks to keep from burning their feet so we bought some baby socks for Skippy.

The first day Skippy donned his socks everyone on the beach oohed & ahhed and said what great animal parents we were, but we gave all of the credit to the volleyball players and their concern. We have even had people drop off little socks for us to use. What a great bunch of people!

With Skippy getting older we know that the mile trek to the beach may some day get to be too much for him so we have already decided we will get one of those bike trailers that people use for their children to let Skippy ride in style to the beach. Of course, we are getting older too so we may have to get someone to ride all three of us to the beach someday!

- Angie