The Nude Life

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…  ;-)  

It was a perfect summer day at Mazo Beach. Warm and sunny, a few fluffy clouds decorating a flawless blue sky, the Wisconsin River sparkling on it’s way to join the Mississippi, then on to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico.

A full complement of beachgoers were frolicking in the water, sunning, playing volleyball. You know, all the things that happy naked people do when they’re happily naked!

Along came a half dozen or so fully clothed men and women who set up lawn chairs in a row and sat down. And stayed that way. Hmm.

Well, nudity isn’t required at the beach but is certainly the norm, and gawkers are definitely not welcome, but they didn’t seem to be gawking. Just sitting there fully clothed on a beach. Hmm again.

Quite some time later, as we were leaving, we stopped and said howdy to them. Told them (nicely) that we were curious as to why they’d be sitting on a beach on a beautiful day dressed from head to toe. I mean, it’s a mile walk from the parking lot and there are a lot of handier beaches.

Finally one of them sheepishly said they were waiting for someone to go first! After a moment or so he said, “I guess I will.” And did.

The rest promptly jumped up and began following suit and as we left them they were busily shedding a lifetime of inhibitions and misconceptions. We can hope and assume that they proceeded to have one of the best afternoons of their lives. Certainly the most memorable!

Welcome to the Family, folks!

We managed to get out of Dallas/Ft. Worth before the season’s first ice storm hit, so we are warm, dry and nude in Orlando now at Cypress Cove. After checking in, getting our clothes off (of course!), getting unpacked, and renting our golf cart for the week, we toured the residential community to survey the many homes for sale right now. There are a lot to choose from, and by the time we meet with the general manager for our prospective resident screening interview, we should have a good list of possible future home sites to select from.

Our first visit to Cypress Cove was probably more than a decade ago. Back then, the resort was way, way outside the boundaries of development of Kissimmee, far, far into the country. We remember driving past the edge of town, into the black darkness of moonless Florida summer night without a single street light to shed any light — and then finally, Cypress Cove’s entrance was there in the darkness. We can only imagine how remote and “past the end of the world” it was 44 years ago when Cypress Cove first opened — before Disney ever heard of Orlando, and before there was anything like commercial air service to the region.

Now, of course, the huge growth of Orlando has spread all the way to Cypress Cove and beyond. There’s a brand-new Lowe’s home center opening up in a few months, directly across the highway from Cypress Cove’s entrance. There’s a Publix, a Wal-Mart, a Home Depot, and everything else you can think of from a typical suburban American city, right outside the gates of this beautiful retreat. So, we won’t lack for convenience or shopping choices once we move here.

The goal of the week is to get a good offer ready on a home to buy here, and to go through what we think will be a formality of a resident interview. The criminal and credit background check will take about 30 days, and then the Cove’s Executive Board will vote on whether to approve us for residency. We’re certain all of that will go well.

Tomorrow, some sightseeing in the area, some sunning by the pool if the weather cooperates, and then Friday night’s activities at the Cheeks Bar and Lakeside Restaurant and Lounge. We hope to get to know some of our soon-to-be-future neighbors. And we are very glad to be far, far away from the ice and cold of Dallas this week, able to enjoy mild, sunny, nude days at Cypress Cove.

Nudists new to the pursuit are often struck, at least for a period of time, at how complete and deep the suntans of many nudists are, especially in the middle of summer. With no unsightly tan lines, and plenty of hours out in the glorious warm sun in which to acquire a nice, deep, healthy suntan, the quintessential “all-over tan” of a regularly-practicing nudist is a distinctive visual attribute quite unusual to those not accustomed to seeing so much human flesh exposed so completely.

What is still remarkable and distinctive even to longtime nudists is the nudist friend who works at maintaining their mid-summer tan through the winter months. At our winter-season nudist parties, the few in our club who do so can’t help but stand out from the rest of us pale-skinned shut-ins. Of course, nearly all of them keep their summer tans year-round thanks to the “fake bake” or “plastic tan” of regular visits to a tanning salon. In fact, it’s a good idea for nudists who are planning a nude vacation in the winter months to start a tanning salon regimen a month or two before their trip in order to pre-tan their skin, reducing the chance of a damaging sunburn during the trip.

Still, it is a wonderful, beautiful, elegant sight when one sees it: a completely natural human being standing before you, nude from head to toe, with a deep, even, luscious tan — in the middle of winter. Such was the case at several recent parties we attended, where some of our nudist friends were able to show off their beautiful,  deeply-tanned nude skin in the most unencumbered way possible, with a tan that most of us won’t have ourselves until mid-summer at best.

These are the most dedicated nudists, to be sure. They love being nude, and want to enjoy the nude experience year-round in the way most of us are only able to in the warmest and sunniest months. I certainly work hard on my all-over tan from March through October, but it doesn’t reach its full measure until early June in most years. Folks who spend their winters visiting tanning salons to keep their summer tans in shape are among the luckiest and most rare of all us nudists.

The thought struck me at the New Year’s Eve party a few weeks back when we met some new nudist friends, a lovely couple who were very glad to have just become new members of our club. Both the gentleman and the lady glowed with deep, even, well-developed tans, which made them look even more beautiful than usual when compared to the rest of us pasty-colored mid-winter no-tan-having shut-ins.

Everyone complimented them on their beautiful head-to-toe tans, and we all wished for the summer days that would soon bring that luxurious glow to all of us. And of course, the possession of a deep, all-over tan in the midst of winter certainly helps confirm one’s “nudist credentials” in the absence of other data — if any is needed — and is always a conversation-starter as well! There’s nothing quite like starting up a conversation with a smiling, beautiful nude woman by saying, “Say, I can’t help but admire your beautiful tan!”

It looks like the exceptional string of above-average warm weather we have enjoyed in North Texas since September will be ending later this week as a cold front presses through the area before Thanksgiving Day. That means we will need to start wearing clothes for a much greater part of the next few months than we have had to do since late March. North Texas is graced with weather very suitable to nudism, with mild Spring and Fall seasons, and glorious hot, sunny summers that last the better part of four months.

As late as today, we were able to enjoy nude sunbathing outdoors in the afternoon sunshine. Temperatures in the low 80s and clear, brilliant sun made taking a break from work for a half-hour to soak up some solar energy a real treat in mid-November! And still tomorrow, before the cold front moves in on Wednesday, we expect to heat up the hot tub and enjoy some nude hot tubbing in the late afternoon. We’re spending Thanksgiving Day with some nudist friends, and so we don’t expect to be dressed up –at all!– for our Thanksgiving feast, even if it means we have to remain indoors for a change.

With any luck, winter will pass with its usual timidity, no snow and ‘cold’ temperatures only in the mid-30s for the coldest days of January and February. But that only makes looking forward to the return of warmth and sun in the Spring all the more tantalizing.

What’s it like where you are? What nudist plans do you have for the holidays? Share your experiences and adventures with other nudists from around the world in The Nude Life Forum!