We are excited to be headed out to De Anza Naturist Resort again. 
There will be a day trip to Black’s Beach. We leave in the morning after a rain has passed. A double rainbow is starting our day. How could anything go wrong?
In the summer of 2008, DF and I went out to De Anza naturist resort, during the ANRR Convention. This presented some first for DF. She had not spent so much time around other people without clothing. We wore nothing, but shoes, for the five days. Like the last time that I was out there, we drove out nude. We had only the towels we sat on to cover with. We draped the towels at the Border Patrol stops and to drive through fast food. We wrapped them around or DF slipped a sundress over her at rest areas and gas stops to get around.
September 2003 (Before DF)
Last Friday night we came home from dinner. The moon was full and straight up in the sky. We thought it was getting cooler and started off with just in case clothes. I wore a sweat jacket and she had a thin summer dress to cover her legs and a zip-up sweat jacket. We figured if one of the neighbors came driving by, I could move behind her and if they stopped we could hold a conversation. We wore sensible footwear for a desert trek. I live in the foothills of a local mountain range. There are trails and the neighborhood dirt roads, about a half of a mile to the trailhead. This may be the last warm full moon that we have this year.
We are driving 4×4 up into the Tortolita Mountains to the old windmill, once again. This had been the launch point to our hike to the county line, earlier in the month. I had acquired some new information about some petrogyphs that I had looked for, now, 15 years.
We leave home nude, but when we arrive at the windmill, there is a mountain biker there. We drive through and pass the windmill on the trail. DF covers with her dress draped over, but in the rear-view mirrors, I see him heading back following us. We finally park off of the trail and he still is approaching. DF puts on her sundress and I place a bag of pretzels between my legs and draped a pair of shorts over my crotch for good measure.
He comes up asking about a loop trail. I explain to him that it is a mistake on the map and doesn’t exist. Instead, I direct him to a well-used trail out to the county line, that I happened to know about (yup, that’s the one) AND he is now going away from us.
My video card died to a grinding halt. Sorry, no post last week.
It had rained, but I know how quickly the waters at Redington Pass can dissipate and I will be very busy the next few days. To enjoy watery naturism in Baja Arizona one must “get it while you can.” I gathered a friend who hadn’t been to the nude use area of Redington Pass. She had been with her daughter to the lower end a few days before, coincidentally, and then once a few of decades before.
We have been hanging out with each other lately. She has been curious about this carnuding thing. She has been comfortably nude about her home even going back to days when raising her children. She had one experience, which she raved about, when taking a nude walk around a woods many years before. She shall be perfect for Redington. My goal is to show this yoga practitioner what a wonderful mindful meditation this place of wonder is.
There have been monsoon floods at Redington Pass the last week. Seventeen people were stranded and had to be airlifted out. A tall wall of water can appear with nothing but the sound like thunder, a roar for a warning. The rains, miles away in the mountains, accumulate as they channel down the mountains. I’ve seen it happen with blue skies overhead.
When it happens, the crevasses either wash out or fill with sand. Huge trees may disappear with all the soil to bedrock in one event. The place changes. One can never know what to expect after rains.
After this, DF and I decided head up to the pass and down into the canyon to see what change there might be. After the floods, after a few days there is a guaranteed flow of water for swimming, or diving and to be fascinated with.
Remember, when you right click an image, it becomes larger and more clear.
The sun is out, the skies are changing alternately from partly sunny to partly cloudy every while. It is sometimes cold and then turns to sunny warmth. My body just takes it in. We are stiff from the long hard drive. Massaging of shoulders and stretching are required.
I step outside, wandering no place in particular, for no clear reason. I’m waking up in stages. DF warms water for tea. We hear a sound, causing both of us to look up at once! It is a braying sound. It is unusual. Somewhere in a drawer in the back of my mind, I have memory of a TV documentary, decades ago, which recorded the sound of a bull elk. It has to be close. We know this terrain, we know that there is a meadow on the other side of this woods. We know how far. Sound and wind places the animal there.
I sit down to quickly slip on my five toe shoes, grab my camera and I am swiftly off to take advantage of opportunity. I haven’t seen an elk in many years; this could be a male with a herd.
I swiftly go up the road across the spring fed creek, which leads to the next meadow to the west. As I come out of the tall trees, I take care not to alert any animal which may be there. Nothing is seen. I silently creep across the grassy field.
I pause and listen, camera at ready. I creep further, until I come to a small boulder rising from the grass. I want to experience this in a primitive manner. I want to experiment with the idea that clothing may give man’s scents. I want to experience what God has given a hunter in senses. Perhaps a wild animal will not recognize a nude human, as a human being. I drop my hat to the ground, quickly slip my long sleeve t-shirt over my head and throw it on the rock. I am nude now, a hunter. I am out to capture an elk with a camera. The sun is out. I’m feeling it.
I continue to creep up a small hill and through a thin piece of woods, which is between me and the rest of the meadow.
My body reports that I am down wind. There in the trees, I smell a distinct wild animal. I ponder if it is fresh, or just left markings. I take even more caution, as I stalk. I place each footing in my five toe moccasins upon an exposed rock, so as to make no sound in the grass, or to accidentally break, or crunch a twig. At the forest’s edge, I survey the field. There is a rise to it. I still can’t see what is beyond that. Squatting down, I make my way, camera in hand.
As my vision comes over the rise, I spot six, maybe seven beast. Friggin’ cattle!
Desperately I look for the elk whose bray that we heard. Nothing but friggin’ cattle are to be seen….
Poor Excuse for a Wild Elk!
As we travel up the familiar road into the alpine region of the White Mountains. We are still in the desert south of Globe, there is a grey threat in our previous turquoise skies. The monsoon’s thunderous torrential storms are around us, but none have changed our day, so far. They travel around in bursts. In the vast wide open sky, you can see them, drowning distant landscapes. You can never know where they might hit next, anymore. The consistent patterns that we knew disappeared back in 1989.
The pattern had been a timely early evening black wall of water coming from the southeast and covering the Tucson valley with moister, which floods washes. We would time dessert to the spectacular lightning show. In the dark clouds lightning shot in fingers and in long stretches across the sky. A huge bolt lights up the entire valley. The consistent monsoon has become unpredictable across the state. From day to day, no one knows when it will hit, where, how long, nor the intensity. It is now an unpredictable rainy season. We are traveling up into mountainous terrain. A deluge, or clear skies, it is hit and miss.
Salt River Canyon
A couple of nights each year my San Pedro cacti bloom. We have to observe them at night, or early morning twilight, so in stealth, undressed we do it.
After exchanging transportation, Sunday, early, we drive off, again. Instead of our four-wheeling through the wilderness, we will tour the area and stay around the regular campsite. We hope that we will be among trees and water.
Three hours later, we arrive at a kiosk and view area.
There is a great band of green and a river below. The desert is sparse here for miles, but for this canyon, which is a ribbon of green filled with trees. It is about 26 miles of perennial water, and a couple of tributaries that add to it. We will be going up the Bonita Creek, as there is a road there, and checking for a place to stay and hike along the water.
I had spoken with the ranger, who told me of camping and a good hike. Sadly, I am about to find out how misleading his information is.
The Free Range Naturist 