I don't know, JBG. Somehow I just fell into a slump as far as FRN is concerned. I'll try to keep up some level of contributions from now on!
In fact we did go on a trip. My wife passed a certain birthday which is often taken as marking a person's transition into senior citizenhood, and she wanted to celebrate by doing what retired people do, that is go to Florida. So we flew down there for just over a week (stopping on the way in Charleston SC to see some of her relatives) and rented a car at the Fort Lauderdale airport. We headed to the Keys first, where we wanted to see the Key deer and take a glass-bottom boat trip over a coral reef. The deer are actually just white-tail deer, but they've evolved into a midget race down there, and they're such an attraction that they've become very tame. The only naturist incident was a swim at the motel we stayed at on Key Largo; I was able to leave my swimsuit under the dock, but of course being nude is an infallible magnet to other people, so when I came back I had to risk being seen. But they didn't find me very interesting. Here's a picture of the dock the night before:
We did drive down to Key West for a day, but we skipped the rooftop restaurant where you can eat in the nude.
Then we headed north to see the Art Deco district of South Beach, which I enjoyed a lot, then north again to the Fort Pierce area, where we met some friends from our hiking group who spend winters there. We went out to Blind Creek Beach with them, and they introduced us to some of the people in the local group, the Treasure Coast Naturists. I didn't take any pictures, but here's one from a previous trip:
Then we traveled south again and stopped in at Sunsport Gardens, where the Midwinter Festival was being held, though we just wanted to see friends rather than join in anything. We accomplished that, and I even ran into Nicky Hoffman ("I can't talk long, I'm on my way to the girls' room") and I said we were glad to hear the Eastern Gathering is coming back to Massachusetts, and she said everyone in TNS felt the same! We also met up with a couple of the German guys, Horst and Rainer, who were on last summer's Naked European Walking Tour. And then after one last night in Hollywood (Florida!) with the rental car GPS dying on the way, we headed back to the Fort Lauderdale airport and home, where it was 68 degrees and we joked that we could have stayed home and been just as warm.
Not a bad trip. We think we might have a Florida vacation every year, like good retired people.
Hey, did you see my letter to the editor in the latest N magazine? Nothing very exciting, but it is on the theme of hiking.
