We have left Safebare to some family business. We’re heading northwest on the Interstate toward Austin Texas. The plan is to stay a couple of weekend days at Star Ranch. The intranet tells us that it is their 65th year celebration, so we’re expecting quite a party. When we call to reserve, we are told that the celebration is a ‘members only” function. There is no way to get in. We are cast adrift.
The next stop was to be Hippie Hollow at Lake Travis near Austin. The Star Ranch reception is helpful for directions through Austin and we head straight to as they say, “Heppy Wholer.”
We look out across a Lake Travis vista as we head down a steep incline to the gate.
The girl at the gate asks “You do know that this is a nude beach?”
We’re at Safebare’s home in NW Houston after a morning walk.
I’m conveniently nude all over, out front in Safebare’s driveway, organizing the car, gathering what I’ll need today.
I hear Safebare making noise with something metal out back, where I had heard his big pickup truck earlier. Looking through the gate, I see him wrestling with his metal canoe. The tailgate is down. I offer to help, as I open and close the tall wooden gate.
The process is easy. Each of us lifts a side of the canoe and slide it into the bed. We strap it down until we are confident that it will stay there.
We’re soon on our way to Somerville Lake. It is a dammed reservoir in the Texas countryside, somewhere out the Interstate towards Austin.
This next day is lazy. We gather ourselves for a visit to Galveston and ice-cream.
The staunch old iron and stone architecture is fun.
The old tall doors open to let the sea breeze in.
We have to beat rush hour through Houston to their northwest side. There is a neighborhood stealth walk and then a canoe trip to enjoy. The Houston freeway is hair raising. My fingers clench the wheel, ready at any instant to react to a brush with death.
The song “If I Can Just Get Off of this L.A. Freeway” comes to mind and won’t go away.
I suggest that DF put the song on the stereo, but she is too intensely busy watching the road and for the next exit to do the search.
The borderline greeting sign had said “Just Drive Friendly, the Texas Way.” It didn’t suggest driving “crazy.”
We’re on our way west, out of Baton Rouge, this morning. We’re going sailing!
Realizing that a drive across Texas is halfway across the continental USA, we decide to take a break at the tourist info center after crossing the border.
We put on clothing in the parking lot and walk around the back to the gateway and into chilling air-conditioning.
The big room is loaded with tall rows of brochures and maps. We’ll have a long drive and we’re looking for fun stops along the way. This is like a library.
We try out the restrooms, before having a machine eat my two futile attempts at a plastic bottle of Coca-Cola. When I inquire at the big desk manned by two ladies, which appear to have spent quite a bit of idyll time together, I am met with an astonished, “way-a-oh.” Texans often need to enunciate all vowels in every word, but these two presented authenticity by actually adding extra vowels to “wow.”
Genuine and friendly, that’s how I like my Texans.
Back in the day, two guys on extended fork choppers cruised across the west in the cult classic “Easy Rider.” If you haven’t seen the essential piece of sixties culture, you should. It’s out there. It’s fun.
I sit in in a Honda Civic packed to the gills, barefoot all over. I’ve been thinking Easy Rider. Maybe we’ve got a similar attitude, mission and unusual look about us. The two hip biker’s flair was of course bold and dramatically different from southern culture of the time. They were flaunting it. We’re looking pretty conventional from the outside of the car, just another pair of tourists. We’re on the same routes, but fifty years later. Maybe we aren’t rocking handcrafted motorcycles and leather clothes, but we’d probably get a similar reception in a small town, walking around without any flashy garb.
In “Easy Rider,” they packed a bedroll and seemed to never change out of the same leather clothes, traveling all across the warm southern USA. We are packed to the gills, as I have said, “ready for anything.” We like to sleep under the stars like them. We are both out to see America. We are both unconventional. Well, things change and they have.
We drive down through the length of Alabama, all the way to the coast. Lot’s of trees, lots of trees, lots of trees…
…We check into our motel in Gulfport, Mississippi and begin the quest for Cajun food. We picked the wrong day, everything is closed. There is a pizza buffet down the highway. It’s pretty good, but mostly the variety makes the fun.
In the evening, we decide to check out the harbor and know where we’re going in the morning. We find our tour boat occupied, rented out to a group of drunken college age girls. They are lighting up the quiet night, belting out off key karaoke and rock anthems as they toast and gyrate.
As the racket fades, the coastal lights on the water’s ripples, with its still, bring a peaceful ambiance, as we stroll arm in arm.
In the morning we’re taking this tour boat out to Ships Island and an unofficial nude beach.
We’re at a retreat in the northern part of Alabama.
I have been researching trails in the Talladega National Forest, but I figure that I need some firsthand experience with the area. Anecdotal testimony of locals has been telling me that once you get away from the main trails, you won’t see many people.
This is reported to be especially true for the Pinhoti Trail, a 170 miles escapade through wilderness, mountains and streams. Many people use it to warm up for the Appalachian Trail. There are busier links to it, but it is well maintained. Because of its length and personification as more of a backpacking trail, there are plenty of nude hiking sections. It goes through old growth forests, water features, and up to grand vistas.
We have had plans for a section of the Chinnabee Silent Trail. Most people travel the popular section, but we are planning to travel on the section across the highway, away from that and then the intersecting trail.
When we last left off, we had fallen asleep under the stars in Palo Duro Canyon.
Before dawn, DF wakes me up. There is a sprinkle coming through the net and lightning can be seen above the canyon walls out on the plains to the west.
As we scramble for the tarp, my sleepy head begins to digest our situation. If we stay and it rains, we will have a soggy tent. When the sun comes up, it will be hot and sticky under the tarp.
The rain is still in the distance. We are awake, now. I suggest that we just leave before the storm.
As we scramble around the public campsite, eventually in the imposition of kilt and sundress, I think of our earlier departure, which will grant us a longer afternoon at our destination. We’re going to Oaklake Trails Naturist Resort in Oklahoma. It will be Labor Day weekend and the place will be popping and filled with activity.
I slurp a little caffeine when we stop for gas in the dark. We avoid the rain and take off out onto the Interstate heading east. There will be one more stop today, for gas. That will be the last coverings this body will need for the next few days.
After an hour, or so, the sky comes alive with bright orange hews. Flashing lights on power generating windmills are spread around the endless stream of headlights. Soon, the sun, an orange ball, creeps up out on a black horizon.
It will feel like a long drive, but the daylight has illuminated my attention. I’m fully present.
We’re camped in the mountains of New Mexico. It has been some lovely walking out here. No cell reception can be found, the rest of the world will have to wait. But we are surrounded by the influx of hunters at our campsite. We’re leaving today.
Before sunrise, a generator comes on. It is just 75 feet away. It wakes me. I lay here realizing that I can’t pack in the dark. A blanket over my head helps and I get another hour of sleep.
The guy leaves without turning the generator off! This place would be so very calm and peaceful when hunting season ends. It would be excellent on any week day.
We pack as quickly as we can. It’s been awhile since we have been out on the road and we haven’t gotten the rhythm of packing up, quite yet. After breakfast and two hours in a beautiful day, we pull away.
We’re on our way to a place in Oklahoma, but we need a place to stop and breakup the long drive. We have chosen Palo Duro Canyon near Amarillo. This affords us an afternoon hiking and exploring and then a longer afternoon at the next stopover, during the coming Labor Day Weekend.
I don’t know much about this “natural wonder.” It is declared the second largest canyon in the United States, but I’m questioning that.
I have surveyed the Palo Duro terrain and hiking trails using the Google map satellite feature and trail maps. It appears that most of the trails are pretty busy and not suitable for nude use. It is limited and not Federal Land.
I found a canyon off of a trail and near a trailhead. We may be able to walk that. It meanders and has concealing walls from erosion.
There is an equestrian trail that goes quite away from the trailhead and the facilities. It may be a good walk and equestrians are easier to see and hear coming. There are usually few trotters, just lumbering riders on western saddles.
The Free Range Naturist 