It is good to have a special place that is near. A spot to enjoy nature, to roam naked and naturally, to meditate and just be. This is the first installment of a series, which takes you with me, as things progress. I’ll explain how this works. Perhaps you will create such a place.
I’m going to have to do this in three parts over three weeks. “The Trip Up”, “Rainbow Gathering”, and then the trip back down, “Home to Home.” Remember, you can click any image to bring better clarity and framing perspectives.
Tenacity and opportunism will see the day through…nude.
Up Saturday morning to take the familiar cruise to Phoenix. We on our way to Lake Powell region, Bryce, Zion, The Rainbow Gathering in the Utah Alpine region and any piece of Americana that we fancied that was in between.
It had been a very late evening into 2016. New Year’s Day was looking like a window of opportunity, like a calm before a storm. The temps in the 60F’s would most likely be with no wind and clear blue skies. Grabbing a smoothie and setting up dehydrated snacks for later, we decided on a jaunt up into the Tortolita Mountains where I live. I had just set up a report to publish about a downstream hike in 2011. We thought it might be fun to see how things have changed, or not. Lesson for New Year’s Day: Everything has change.
We had a computer meltdown on publication day, sorry for the delay. Another post will appear in just a couple of days.
We decided to explore the downstream side of a wash, that cuts across the jeep road, which leads up into the Tortolita Mountains. We usually head upstream, and I had only traveled a short distance in this direction. There had been construction of an exclusive subdivision somewhere past here. They had been putting roads in to connect the multi-million dollar lots. It needed to be seen before the changes and there was curiosity.
It had been wintery warm 60’s and Df and I decided that we needed a hike on Thursday. The weather report told of a high around 69, very encouraging. We awoke to the sound of dangling jingling wind chimes and lay looking out the window at swaying reeds and mesquite branches, at her house. The plan had been to try out her new 5 finger KSO’s at Redington Pass, but that wind would create a strong chill factor. After deliberating for way too long, we couldn’t hold back, there was a chill, but things were pretty comfortable in the windbreak of her backyard. We decided to try a closer short hike up Ventana Canyon with clothing on. Ventana trailhead starts in the lush growth of the foothills, next to a resort hotel of the same name. I hadn’t been up in there. She had once when there had been torrential rains and rushing water flowing. It is on this day, bone dry. Extremes being the rule around the world, our latest here is that this is the first January in the history of measurement that it hasn’t rained in the “old Pueblo.”
The Free Range Naturist 