I felt emotionally disturbed after I left the nudist camp, for about two days. I needed to talk about it and process it verbally to try to understand what I was feeling. Many of my friends were surprised to learn that I, who has been a life drawing model for 25 years and recently returned to the job after a 20 year hiatus, had a challenging time. Why? What was going on?

There is a huge difference between taking off my clothing and sitting on the modeling stand (enables artists to learn how to draw the human form) and hanging out with a shit ton of naked people. I am the only one nude on the modeling stand. I look out onto completely clothed people and I observe them. They certainly look at me, but they are looking at the shadow the light makes on my skin, the way my hip curves, the shape of my eye. I don’t dwell on the fact that I am clothed and they are not. So someone said, “Oh, so you have a difficult time with everyone ELSE being naked? “ Yes I suppose I did.

I didn’t want to see them. I guess that’s what it comes down to. It was too much.

But I did not personally enjoy being naked at the camp. After a few hours, I was thrilled to put my clothing back on and felt much more comfortable clothed, even walking through the pool area of naked people.

I do not think I am a treat to look at personally. I think I have good parts and the bad part (my belly- from multiple births) is really best left covered up. I am happy that the worst part of me can always stay covered. That is for my sake as well as for everyone else’s. So I am not JUDGING anyone thinking I am a babe and they are not.

I was surprised to see so many out of shape and chubby people at the nudist camp- nearly everyone. It was the norm not the exception. I am not talking sagging butts etc from age. I do believe the human form is beautiful and human beings are beautiful but I found it disturbing to view so many bad-looking bodies. Now a “bad looking body” is debatable. I personally think a body that has good muscle tone is the most beautiful. A body that is fit. It doesn’t matter to me if it is an older fit body or even an old fit body. ASTHETICALLY I just prefer that visual- fitness. I personally believe in fitness, not because it is aesthetically more pleasing to look at but because I think it is the way to live, to strive to live. I believe when you are healthy and fit, your body has less aches and pains, it performs better, enabling you to move through life and function more proficiently. If your body works well, your mind will work well and your mental image of yourself will be more positive. It is all connected and I think we are more able to do the work we were meant to do much better if we are healthy and fit. It’s that simple.

I started to think that everyone at the nudist camp was content to stay the way they are and accepted the way they are because everyone else there looked equally as bad. Every weekend, they drive to the nudist camp to hang out on chaise lounges. A handful of men play volleyball but only one or two women. They do not bike ride or hike or do any other kind of physical activity because if they enjoyed it, they would be doing it on weekends instead of lounging by a pool nude. So this fact bothered me- it felt like the nudist camp gave them all permission to not care about their bodies. It did not seem to be about health to me at all- we don’t need to have all our clothing off in order to absorb Vitamin D.

But IF they really mostly enjoyed nudist camps because they simply hated wearing clothing, I can get that. I STILL did not want to look at so many of them at one time. It was overwhelming. I was told that they do not look at one another. I could not STOP looking at them as I was amazed and interested. I suppose I would become desensitized over time but that is not a goal of mine.

What really made me the most disturbed however, was learning how many of the nudists AT THIS CAMP swing- as in sharing sexual partners, switching back and forth- 50-60-70 year olds, which amazed me. This saddened me the most because I don’t really understand this. I think it might have to do with boredom, lack of excitement in life. (sexual life or your whole life). When I think of all that life has to offer, this seems crazy to me. If you want to broaden your heart, there are babies in hospitals to hold, old folks to shuttle, troubled kids to mentor. If you are not into helping others, there is a ton of ways to add excitement and an endless variety of things to learn and do. The world and its people are limitless. And the amount of beauty and magic it holds is limitless. I have been told that all nudist camps are not about swinging at all. Maybe the one I attended is not the norm.  I have no interest in going to another camp to find out, however.

I do think that nudists go to camps because they do not quite fit in with the rest of the world and society. Many are odd ducks. (Not that I ever considered myself NORMAL but I do feel very grounded in my uniqueness).  At a nudist camp, they have found their tribe. If the rest of the world does not accept them, nudists welcome them all. And that is great. They are definitely not MY tribe. Maybe some of you thought that since I was a life drawing model, attending nudist camps might become my next love. Never. It is completely different.

I do think it is great that if you personally want to experience a nudist camp, you can go for the day- and have a life-altering experience. I cannot think of many other experiences in my personal life that can compare with the strangeness of this. Maybe you will find that you are a different enough duck and fit right in.

(If you do not know what this Part 3 is concluding, check out my blog to understand Parts 1 & 2 where I just report and describe “my view” from the nudist camp.) I would really appreciate some feedback on this blog as it still not crystal clear in my mind- all that I was feeling and experiencing.

When Jill and I saw the pasties, dick socks, see-through tops, sequined bras and other sexy clothing for sale at the Sunny Rest Camp store, alongside Pepsi and bags of chips, a red flag popped up in our minds like an aroused willie. “What’s this all about? We thought nudist camps were about health and sun.” 

Resort owner Myra had told us that no one attends Saturday night club nude but in lingerie (as in Victoria Secret?) and risque clothing. This sounds creepy. Uncomfortable. Jill and I brought cute little dresses along for the occasion, instead.  

We learned earlier today from Irv, the 88-year-old owner, that many of the resort’s nudists engage in swinging- like the majority, as in 60%. They are not young- 50-60-even 70 year olds! It goes on behind closed cottage and trailer doors. They make the connections and arrangements on the down-low. This fact has been in the back of our minds ever since we learned it. 

Jill and I arrive at the nightclub at 9:30, when the event is supposed to begin and find only a handful of folks sitting on bar stools (you can tell how many night clubs we go to). One man has a T-shirt on only and his legs are splayed open in a relaxed manner with the family jewels hanging out in their all their glory just below the hem line. A woman walks in with over-the-knee leather boots, a skirt that ends ABOVE her crotch and black straps around her boobs.

At 10:30, people begin to dance and Jill and I tire of gawking.

“Let’s dance,” in an attempt to make our shower, make-up application and dress worth it.

We find a quiet corner to ourselves and try to get into the music. But there are distractions. 

An extremely curvy woman with a generous butt and colossal boobs (the one whose top was wallowing in her dinner plate earlier in the restaurant) stretched a skin-tight red lace transparent dress over her full form. Her nipples were clearly visible as was her butt crack yet it too ended right ABOVE her crotch and butt bottom (what’s with these girls not buying dresses that are the right size?). Her make-up looks like she was in the Phantom of the Opera with great wispy curves of eye liner reaching around her face. Her boyfriend, Harley dude that looks like bald Mr. Clean from the 50’s commercials- bulbous and big, has on a black leather vest, of course. She performs around him dipping and circling like an animal in heat doing a mating dance and he makes gestures as though he is presenting her. It is all rather primal. 

To our other side is an older woman in a leather laced bodice, black heels, stockings and black garter. Her wide, white dimpled cellulite ass is framed by the garter straps and appears to glow in the night club’s day-glow lights. Her boyfriend, sports an opposite look- geeky and normal in a three-button Henley polo shirt, khaki shorts and polished sockless loafers. He is the dance instructor.  He teaches her how to jitter bug like in Grease, and is directing her while he paws and pets her and shows her how to grind, all the while wearing a look on his face like any second his mouth will leak drool. 

And on the far side is a geezer who looks to be in his 80’s. He has a black wife-beater t-shirt on and cowboy boots- that is it. His partner is also the opposite, an unobtrusive elderly grandmotherly type with baggy polyester pants, a blousy button down loose-fitting top and curly permed hair, looking like a lunch lady who just served mac & cheese to elementary school kids in the cafeteria. But what is that dangling between the guy’s legs? It looks like a black penis but how could a white guy have a black penis? On closer look, it appears not to be a very healthy penis at all but shriveled and sick, like a black dried-up, dead banana peel that was stripped off weeks ago. Then we realize that he has a black silk dick sock on, but his dick doesn’t extend that far and can’t fill it all out, so the fabric is just twisted and limp as it hangs there.    

“I can’t do this anymore.” I announce to Jill.

“I’ve had enough too.” 

This feels like a bad dream. On the way out the door, we excuse ourselves past a robust round woman who is bopping it by the bar. But she suddenly becomes very hot as she dances and whips off her dress, continuing to dance butt naked, with her tattoos move to the music. 

“I want my jammies,” Jill says as we walk back to our room. “I would even like a Teddy and to call my Mom.”

Tonight feels surreal, like we landed on another planet. 

Fortunately for us (and my husband and Jill’s boyfriend) none of the swingers approached us. No one asked us to dance. No one even talked to us. Perhaps word got out that these two writers should be given a wide berth. Some of my friends back home thought nudist camps are all about sun and health. Others told me not to be so naive and of course, they are about swinging. It appears to be about both, at different times in the day perhaps. At least here at Sunny Rest.  

Jill and I were put into a motel room with one queen size bed. I told the owner, “After looking at my friend’s bare butt all day long, I am NOT sleeping in the same bed with her.”

She agreed to put a blow-up mattress on the floor. But when we return from our night out, the air has all escaped from the mattress. So I settle in on the hard floor and realize that the person in the room next to us has her TV blaring. There’s no way I can sleep.

So I go next door and knock. The door swings wide open and there, to my utter surprise and sheer horror, stands a huge woman completely nude with monstrous breasts to her waist.

NEVER would this happen anywhere but in a nudist camp. But still I am taken by horrific surprise.

“Do you mind turning your TV down?”

“Oh, I am SO sorry. Of course you can’t sleep. And the TV is right on your wall. I’ll turn it off light away.”

They say nudists are some of the friendliest people. They are also some of the most nakednest people and I have had enough. 

Breakfast is included in our room but at this moment I announce to Jill, “We could go home right now and I could make you an equally nice breakfast in the morning.”

It’s very tempting, but we decide to tough it out and not escape and leave, as originally planned, in the morning, like polite writers.

I have no idea what to pack for a nudist resort get-away. “Very little in the clothing department,” my husband and daughter tease. But it is chilly this June weekend, and possible rain in the forecast. What do they do under these circumstances, crank up the heat to allow patrons to go unclothed? This seems really stupid energy wise in the summer, but patrons do pay good money to go there and romp unclothed outdoors and in. When I ask the resort owner, Myra this question, she tells me the camp’s motto… “Nude when possible, clothed when necessary.” I could interpret the “necessary” part multiple ways.  

My writer friend, Jill Gleeson and I are uncertain about so many aspects of this nudist camp weekend get-away that we are about to embark on, and what to pack is just the tip of the iceberg. We do feel a certain security in numbers. We are thrilled that the other has consented to go along on this “life moment.” You might not understand what the big deal is for a woman who has been a life drawing nude model for decades but I am still unsure of what this whole nudist camp will be like. We are braced.

Sunny Rest Nudist Resort is located in the Poconos outside Palmerton, PA near the Appalachian Trail- only half an hour away- another whole world so close to my doorstep. It has been in operation since 1942 and the current owners have recently celebrated their 68^th year. Three generations of owners live here and raised their kids clothing-optional. To them and to many, it is a normal way to live.

Before we go through the resort gate “to the world beyond” and check our ID, we stop at the entrance sign with the posed nude babe symbol and shoot a few photos. We whip off our shirts behind the stone wall and spread our arms out over the top. This act gives ourselves away, to everyone who is coming and going- (newbies! ) especially the guy at the gate, who  immediately identifies us as the two writer guests- they have us pegged from the get-go.

As soon as we drive up the narrow black top road leading into Sunny Rest, we are surprised to see a naked old dude walking casually down the street, acting like it was the most normal thing in the world to do. (Duh! What were we thinking we would see- lions, and tigers and bears?)

“That old guy isn’t circumcised,” I observe, matter-of-factly.

“But he has a defibrillator,” Jill observes, equally matter-of-factly.

And so we begin our investigation. “Matter of fact” is what this weekend will probably be all about, at a place where not wearing any clothing is normal and matter-of-fact. Jill and I will have to learn to adjust, adopt the same attitude, and attempt to fit in. This remains to be seen.

We pull over by the office to check in and look over into the pool area.

“There‘s more naked dudes over there,” Jill reports and we look, with open mouths, surprised.

A naked landscaper with a baseball hat and sneakers, swings his weed whacker in long arches.

We get out of the car and a naked older couple with sagging skin and rolls of fat walk by heading to the pool area. “Hi there,” they cheerfully greet us.  We’re not used to this yet.

In the office, we get our motel room key, the resort’s activity sheet, and decide on a schedule for interviews, tours etc.

A hike through the forest leaves in fifteen minutes. It is cool out still and the owner says SHE is wearing clothing, for she is easily chilled. Jill and I will do the same. THIS we can do.

Only two other guests attend the hike, one is a clothed and is very nice- a hippie-dippie landscaper and another is a nude man who merely wears hiking shoes and socks. We try not to look at him, our first “up-close-and-personal-in- our- face” nudist, but we can’t help ourselves for there is something very peculiar about him. He has no genitalia- no willie, no balls. Where they should be is just his hairy pelvis.

Can he be a transvestite? Jill tells me no, impossible. In her former life as a TV writer, she personally knew a transvestite and getting your genitalia removed was the last thing that you did, after years of hormone replacements therapy. Our hiking buddy was clearly a guy in every aspect, with profuse body hair but his parts are just missing. Wow, we wonder if he was in some sort of accident.

(Later, when I interview owner, Myra and ask about him, she says  she has no idea what the deal is. But she never noticed, never looked. Never looks at anyone, never has. )

But Jill and I do.  There are so many sizes and shapes of bodies. Variety is the word. And no one cares if they have cellulite or saggy skin or fat rolls, or even missing genitalia. Amazing.

We return to our room to plan out Step 2. We climb the few steps of the patio and pass yet another naked dude sitting on the deck on a towel on a lounge chair, reading a book, “Good morning!” he cheerfully greets us.  Jill and I close our motel room, feeling safe and secure and decide on a mode of operation.

“How about baby steps?” I suggest. “Let’s make lunch, take off our clothing and pull two chairs up on the deck and eat naked.”

“OK, we can do that.” Jill replies.

I make a peanut butter and marshmallow Fluffer Nutter sandwich, comfort food, which I have not indulged in in years.

On the deck, in the sun, naked to the world, as we eat our lunch, Jill looks over at me and says, “How are you doing?’

“I’m OK. “ I reply.

The nude dude below us looks up at us and smiles. “First time here?”

“First hours here.”

“Enjoy yourselves,” he instructs. I’m not so sure of that.

After we eat, we decide on Step 2.

“Let’s go up to the pool. We’ll put our towels around us, walk up, find two chaise lounge chairs in the corner, take off our towels, lay them on the chairs and lay down nude.”

“OK.”

And we proceed to walk up through the scattering of naked couples on chaise lounges, who are middle-aged and older. They all make eye contact and smile and say, “Hi.” NO ONE looks below the neck. ‘Cept for Jill and I. We look at EVERYONE EVERYWHERE for we are fascinated.

(“Creepers!” my kids accuse me on the phone when I check in. “Yea, I guess so, but in the name of literary reporting.” )

As so we are lounging in the sun.

“I am surprisingly OK with this,” Jill announces.

“I’m not crazy about it.”

We soon get chilly and realize we need to get ourselves into the large “Conversation Pool,” which is kept at 96 degrees.

“Should we walk over with our towels around us?” I ask Jill.

“No, we have to do more than this. We have to walk across the pool area nude.”

“Really? OK.” I consent.

So we do it, our towels clutched to our fronts and saying hello and smiling to anyone whose eyes meet ours. In the pool, we submerge to our necks for the air is chilly and the jet bubbles mask what lies beneath.

We chat with those around us. Others hear our conversation and move closer, drink in hand, and ask to join in the conversation. They all tell us about their first time here, why they enjoy it, how long they have been coming.

Everyone simply adores living life without their clothing on. This is the main draw. At home, they walk around the house with their clothing off. If they could go into their yards at home unclothed, they would, but they can’t. Many have high stress jobs. There are lawyers, judges, doctors, lots of nurses (could the fact that they see so many naked bodies in their occupation make public nudity easier for them?) Many went to the nude beach in New Jersey first, then sought out Sunny Rest after realizing how much they enjoyed being a nudist.

I do not notice anyone checking anyone else out, (except for Jill and I) and this surprises me. We did not see one aroused man.  Myra says she has not seen one in years!  She tells the young new ones, “If it happens, just sit down until you get yourself together.”

Population here is about 50/50 men to women. People own permanent trailers here and come and go when they like. There are over 15 cottages and cabins to rent/lease, you can pull up a motor home to a hook-up, set up a rustic tent camp or stay in one of their 22 motel rooms like Jill and I. About 27-28 families live here full time. Almost everyone owns a golf cart to get around.

The camp is large- 190 acres and there are a plethora of planned activities every weekend. Live bands play at the poolside all afternoon…karaoke during happy hour, scheduled hikes, yoga, zumba, volleyball and water polo games and at night- the nightclub rocks with a DJ.  There is even a 7K nude trail race scheduled, open to the public.

“Some folks run it that have never raced before,” Myra tells me.  “And, have never been nude in public before either!”

“Doesn’t that bouncing hurt?” I ask.

“One woman wrapped her breasts in plastic wrap to prevent discomfort but ended up ripping it off.”

Single women receive a half price membership to keep gender balanced out. Families are welcomed and there are a few kids running around.

Myra tells me that Sunny Rest is all about community. There is a freedom, a liberation present here and also in the resort goers personalities. “You don’t see cellulite and saggy skin in the movies but you do here. It is real. “

She tells me that Sunny Rest nudists get together in the winter in their own homes, go to one another’s graduations, anniversary parties. They are like a big family. They certainly have friends back at home in their other lives, but they are not the same as their nudist friends. Eighty percent of the nudists know one another after years of attending.

Today, there is a volleyball tournament going on in the sand court next to the pool and a water polo competition in the pool itself. Both games are heavily made up of men with an occasional woman player.

Sunny Rest is growing rapidly. They buy two spots on local Allentown rock radio stations every month and the stations come out to the resort to stage live recordings every year.  Although the majority of resort attendees are older- in the 50-70’s range, there are a considerable amount of younger folks (under 35, whom I find much easier on the eyes.) This is because of the marketing wizardry of Irv’s granddaughter, Halsie, who majored in marketing in Susquehanna University.

The local community of Palmerton loves Sunny Rest. Besides employing over fifty workers, their up to 1500 weekend visitors sink a boat load of cash into the local economy buying supplies etc. Sunny Rest owners are also active members of the Lehigh Valley Chamber & Visitors Bureau.

Nudists meet here, fall in love here, even set their weddings here (saving a shit ton on the bridal and bridesmaid dresses).    

Halsie says she grew up accepting all kinds of people, without any prejudice, with no concern about how they look. She and her mother, Myra, claims to never notice what people look like.

“I couldn’t describe what particular people look like if I had to.”

“Nudists are non-judgmental people. They are some of the friendliest people too. They have nothing to hide.

“A nudist camp is not what most people think it is. Women do not look like Victoria Secret models. Men are not leering. It teaches kids that nudity and sex are two different things. And it teaches kids not to be ashamed of their bodies, no matter what they look like.”

“Some people think nudist camps are a cult. Thirty years ago, they were. But here you have such a cross of people. Walk into a grocery store and that’s the kind of mix you find here. And they come from far away- Virginia, Massachusetts, even foreigners seek them out when traveling, as we are members of AANR- American Association of Nude Recreation- the top nude tourist association.”

Sunny Rest complies by certain rules- NO OVERT sexual behavior in public ever. Zero tolerance. No one cares what goes on behind closed doors but if anyone sees any overt sexual behavior, they are advised to report it. A stern warning is delivered first, after that, they are removed from the premises. Three security guards walk the grounds at night.

Co-owner Irv (Myra’s x-husband’s father) takes Jill and I out for a golf cart ride and tells us how he and his now-deceased wife became owners. “I was always wearing uniforms. In the Navy, as a fire fighter. I told my wife I wished we could find someplace where I didn’t have to wear a uniform, or anything! And so we came to Sunny Rest and bought it!”

On our tour, we see a naked man building a house with a straw hat on, work boots, a contractor’s leather tool belt, a knee brace yet he’s working a circular saw. There’s something I find a tad disturbing about this. Kind of like working in the kitchen frying bacon. We pass the tennis courts and there is a woman whacking a serve with a cute little tennis skirt on but bouncing boobies. A man serves it back in a T-shirt but his willie is jiggling just beyond the hem.  In the last few hours, I have seen so many men’s penises, so many different sets of boobs- tattoos, piercings.  I’m not used to it yet.

Jill and I decide to try being nude one more time by the pool at the end of the day. The sun has finally come out and she would like to catch some rays and put a little color into her blindingly white body.  Karaoke is going on and Jill is considering singing a tune as a naked person. She thinks that would be the ultimate nude experience. The singers are horrendous and they are all clothed for some odd reason, so Jill decides not to do it.

Our hippie hiking friend comes over to sit with us. He shares as he makes colored embroidery floss macramé bracelets for his friends.  “This place is a little piece of paradise to me, without going to Jamaica. The moment I go through that gate, I feel peace flooding over me. Isn’t this the most relaxed you’ve ever felt in your life?”“Not really,” I say. “I feel at peace pretty much always at home. I live in the woods, I hike and ride my bike every day.”

Actually, I’m feeling a little disconcerted, thinking about tonight’s event- the night club dance. People don’t go nude there, we were told, but wear club dresses or lingerie. “What is that all about?” Jill and I ask one another. That sounds a little creepy.  I am getting tired of seeing men’s dangling willies and women’s great giggly butts.  I have to learn not to look, but I am still so amazed. One woman looks like she had gastro bypass surgery and her skin hangs in great sheets like waves off of her legs and butt and belly. It is truly fascinating. Above her waist, she looks normal. She must have been one of these obese women who was shaped like a monstrous pear and carried all her weight on her bottom half.

I find myself looking as an artist and like an anthropologist, who is interested in humanity. I drew nude men and women for years in life drawing class and think the human body is beautiful and fascinating . This feels like sensory overload however. I see nude bodies everywhere I look. It is difficult for me not to look at their bodies instead of their faces because it is so new to me.

A new crowd has seemed to gather around the pool and they’re dressed a little sexual, perhaps preparing for tonight’s night club. .. as in women in glitter high heels with lengths of rhinestones draped around their hips. Humm, what is this? I thought a nudist camp wasn’t about sex?

Jill says she must experience a meal nude before this weekend is over. “Go for it,” I tell her. We leave the pool area and head right to the restaurant. I keep my towel wrapped around my body but get quickly chilled as it is damp and the air conditioning is blowing on me.

“I’m going back to the room to get dressed. I want to enjoy my meal.”

I return with shorts and a t-shirt feeling so cozy, and I pass a woman at the next table with gigantic bare breasts that seem to spill onto her plate. Whoa!

I ask the waiter, “Was this hard to deal with when you first came here to work?”

“He says, “I am a nudist myself. Most of the workers are. We get to use the facilities for free if we work here and that is a great deal.  Those workers who aren’t nudists often can’t deal with it and end up quitting.”

I can feel myself getting to that point…getting ready to quit this place. One more event lies ahead- the night club and we are bracing ourselves for what could be the epitome (or the nightmare) of the nudist camp experience.

This weekend I am heading to a Nudist Camp (down the ridge in Palmerton near Leighton of all places) for the weekend with my crazy writer friend, Jill Gleason. We are going as experiential observers, to write stories. We will be standing there with our sweating glasses of iced tea (or harder stuff) and notepads, interviewing and jotting down notes. We plan to participate but am not sure when we will jump in and on what level.

Some folks think half the guys walk around with hard ons and they stare at your nipples.

Some folks think most of these people are extremely bored in life and have nothing else to do.

Some folks think they are all perverted and probably swing with each other.

Some think there are orgies.

Some think there are all sorts of people there, many professionals, who just like to live life without their clothing on.

Some people think no one looks at anyone- that it is just polite to avert your eyes.

Some people think it must be very freeing

Some people think everyone will be older and no one’s body will look good but rather saggy, fat and disgusting.

Some think they must live very restricted lives and need this as a release.

So what do they do when it is cool out in the summer months- turn the heat on so they don’t gave to throw on a shirt? And do they keep the air conditioner on low because if it is too cool, you’d need a sweater then too and all of this would defeat the purpose of going to a nudist camp. (And what exactly is the purpose of going to a nudist camp?) They would have to maintain a comfortable temperature or it would defeat the purpose of spending the money to walk around nude, because we can walk around where we live with a sweater on without getting arrested for indecent exposure.

And what about the campers- do they risk getting crackling flying embers on their bare bodes as they sit naked around a campfire?

Do they all rub suntan lotion on one another as part of the ritual?

So many questions. I have so many questions and so does every person I know that I have spoken to about this upcoming experience. They want my phone on and handy so they can communicate. But where am I supposed to put it? Do they all wear little name tag sacks on cords around their necks like at conferences containing their key and phone and money to buy drinks? (“Some do,” the owner says). I have a friend whose old girlfriend was a bartender there. She wore clothing and felt stupid.

There is a volleyball tournament scheduled. A karaoke night. An organized hike in the forest Saturday morning. Afternoon dance party by the pool with live band. (“Do they dance with their boobies bouncing and their ‘wallys’ jiggling.?”

“They do,” the owner replies.)

They told me my girlfriend and I have one queen size bed. I told them that is not going to work. If I have to look at her naked butt all day, I sure as heck don’t want to sleep with her. They are bringing in a blow-up mattress for the floor.

When I asked what to bring, I was told.. a towel (That takes care of the gross leaking body fluids) to sit on and sunscreen. Shoes for hiking. Shoes for dancing (do they wear them to the “nightclub” so spilled beer and people don’t step on your bare feet?)

I was also told that you can wear or take off clothing according to your comfort level. Their motto is, “Nude when possible. Clothed when necessary.” When I asked if we should perhaps ease into it, I was advised, “It’s just to best strip it off like a Band-aid- Quickly.”

When I first called for information, the receptionist asked me, “Haven’t you ever been to a nudist camp before?”

“No.”

“Oh, you are going to have SOOOO much fun.”

That remains to be seen.

Stay tuned.

Our first international experience with our children does not occur abroad, but in America, on the Navajo Indian Nation. It is our fifth summer and last stretch of our extended journey along the National Scenic Continental Divide Trail. We have already spent four summers llama packing across the Rocky Mountains from the Canadian border down to the Mexican border. After 2,500 miles of llamas trekking, we crossed into New Mexico and switched out our llamas for tandem mountain bikes and trailers. Because water sources throughout this state are as far apart as forty miles, and the greatest part of the unconstructed trail is on roads, self-propelled two-wheel travel makes the most sense.

We are cycling the remaining 650 miles to the Mexican border, using the Great Divide Mountain Bike Trail. This route attempts to stick as closely to the actual Divide as possible, while staying on public lands.

The Navajos have a strong sovereign government with their own laws. As we pass through this 100-mile section, we are concerned about the trespassing laws. This open country does not allow us to inconspicuously get off the road and set up camp. Fortunately, we made friends with a Navajo woman at the post office and she invited us back to her home for the night.

I knead the fry bread dough while my Navajo friend instructs and hot oil sizzles in the pan. Outside the old trailer, her eight children, with bare feet and snotty noses, join our children in a game of hide-and-seek, a universal game regardless of the language barrier. Although Navajo children learn English once they go to school, Navajo is the preferred language among all ages. I tell my children to watch out for the barbed-wire clothesline that hangs dangerously at eye level. An American flag flaps in the breeze from a tin shelter hung there to welcome us, they tell us. The Navajo Indian Reservation is not public land but privately owned by another nation.

I snatch glances around the house as we cook. I see broken screen doors, duct-taped windows, and Scotch-taped countertops. I feel self- conscious of my apparent wealth, our ability to cut-out of regular life and pursue this multi-month adventure, even though this is my “job” in a great sense. I long to point out that back home, we live rather simply and especially on the trail, that we have more commonalities than differences. Perhaps she already senses this or she would not have reached out to us.

As we make bread together, Rose tells me that many Navajo still practice the old ways, despite religious groups who have come in to establish churches and teach them “a better way.” Some still live in hogans, take sweat baths, and hold dances for the sick and there are medicine women that still practice.

When the sun goes down, she takes me on a walk to her favorite lookout point. We pass her relatives’ broken-down trailers and modular homes. She recalls matter-of-factly a brother who abandoned his family, a sister-in-law who is in jail, a young boy who’s just been murdered in a fight. Poverty, alcoholism, and unemployment define their lives.

In the same breath Rose proudly points out sacred peaks, sandstone cliffs, pastel bluffs, all radiating beautiful color in this evening light. The Navajo are rich in magnificent country. Rose understands how these two realities of Navajo life are integrated and cannot be separated. We both can appreciate the beauty yet at the same time, acknowledge the pain.

I am moved that she feels trusting enough to open up and share such personal information. I believe it is uncommon and I wonder if it because of our mode of transportation- on bikes, and in the company of our children.

I found the same to be true while touring Amish country back in Pennsylvania, where horse and buggies and bicycles, not gasoline-powered vehicles are the means of transportation. There too, we were viewed as less threatening and these fiercely private people reached out to us where they historically avoid the “English.” 

Cycling is a slower way to move across the land, enabling us to stop, reach out and connect. There is only one slower- walking. Both modes of covering ground demonstrate the fact that you care enough to want to spend more and quality time there. People open up, begin to share, and education begins.

As we load up our bikes the next day, the Navajo mother sorts through her children’s things for presents: a too-large blouse for Sierra, a broken toy for Bryce. Perhaps she wants to give us a parting gift to remember them by. Our whole family is quiet after this impoverished [only on one level] potlatch, for we are feeling so many emotions and trying to make sense of them.

Even though our material things have been pared down to the basic essentials on this bike trip, we feel tremendously wealthy next to our new friends. Even though our $3,000 tandem mountain bikes were free from the manufacturer in exchange for writing about them, we still appear and actually are quite privileged to be doing what we are doing with our family. In my mind, this encounter with her family is the kind of thing that makes us rich, not the tandem mountain bikes. We all have a new reference point of wealth, even my six-year-old, as we head out across the reservation road. Our Navajo visit is the topic of choice for many miles of pumping pedals. 

And that question is simply, “What exactly is poverty?”  “Are we poor?”

“There is a difference between a want and a need,” I tell them.  “Your friends wear designer sneakers in school yet I would not think of ever buying them. I think designer sneakers are impractical and unnecessary. They are a status symbol, which I do not believe in. Your father and I chose to spend our money on adventures and traveling like this bike trip.”

“I’m happy to go to a second hand store for my clothing,” Sierra replies. “I like wearing clothes that other people out grew if it means we can have fun trips like this.”

“It’s all a choice, no matter how little or how much money you have,” I tell the kids. They get that. Children catch on fast if you take the time to talk and explain to them.

This experience on the Navajo Reservation laid the groundwork for understanding the difference between a need and a want. Material things other children their age deem necessary in order to be happy and be accepted, never enter their realm of childhood wants. I also think life on the trail showed them how very little material things they actually need in life in order to be happy, as well as the traveling lifestyle exposing them to what true poverty is at a remarkably young age. In-your-face illustrations like the Navajo reservation pound it home.

 The Chalae Village of the Laku tribe

The sound of muffled pounding wakes me from my sleep. A tiny fire illuminates the workplace of the thirteen-year-old Thai “woman” who is pounding rice for the day’s meals. Her muscular leg stomps down on the log beam that causes a mortar to strike a deep bowl containing unhulled rice. For an hour she must do this, every day, in order to reap about two quarts of rice. To us, this seems like very hard work for a young “woman,” but our guide told us last night on our tour of this Hill Tribe village, she was just married. She’s got a long life of hard work ahead of her. This fact amazes eleven-year-old daughter, Sierra, who is finding the culture of Thailand far different from American standard life in Pennsylvania. Sierra would only have two more years of freedom and childhood play before becoming a woman, a wife, a mother? Startling! This sobering fact occupies Sierra’s mind for a long time.

On this month-long adventure to exotic Thailand, our family begins to clearly sees the spectacular lessons learned while traveling. This wandering lifestyle, whose seeds were planted on the Continental Divide, will become the norm of how and why we educate our children. Nothing will become more central to our children’s foundation of knowledge than what they learn while traveling the globe.

When the work elephants with the heavy chains around their necks and feet arrive at our hut a few hours later, I have to throw fear to the wind. The mahout, or elephant driver, with a cloth wrapped loosely around his head, turban-style, the tattoos up and down his arms and the rolled-up smoking leaves between his teeth, makes eye contact with me and motions for Bryce. He wants me to lift my nine-year-old son up over the elephant’s head and put him in the basket behind him. We are off for a half-day ride through the jungle.

The mahout bounces on the elephant’s neck and sings to her in an eerie chant the entire time he drives. The elephant’s baby follows close behind and we occasionally stop for her to nurse. We rock and sway with the animal’s large purposeful steps. The big leathery ears flap back and forth across our lower legs while our feet rest on the animal’s great head like a footstool. Orchids hung from the trees and are easily visible at this height. The mahout turns around and with his stained and missing teeth, smiles at us, unable to communicate in any other way. He takes my son from the basket and places him on the elephant’s head in front of him. Bryce turns around and beams at me and I know I made the right decision to bring my family to this wonderfully strange country.

Thailand is not the normal family vacation destination. Disneyland is. Bryce announced one time that a particular schoolmate had been to Disneyland five times and he has never been there. “Too bad,” I told him. “Disneyland is simulated adventure. Your parents believe in the real deal. You’ll have to wait to go until you take your own kids,” I tell him.

As we enter the Karen Village along the Mae Klong River on our elephants, a young girl is fishing, a man is kneading soapy laundry on a flattened log and a pig is rooting in the mud- normal village goings-on. We walk around the village, watching the pigs and chickens that roam freely and live under the huts on stilts, eager to snag any scrap of food that falls through the bamboo floors. Families cook supper on open fires, women sit nursing babies, embroidering cloth, winnowing rice.

Some kids we pass in an open dirt lot, play bat the plastic bottle over badminton net. With no rackets or birdie, they use the next best thing. My kids join in and discover that a language barrier is non-existent when it comes to laughter. They also understand that you can have to make-do with whatever “toy” is available to play with and having fun has more to do with a state of mind than an actual material object.

I once read an article in a women’s magazine about a mother who was having challenges with her pubescent-age child. She recommended taking them to a developing country at this point so they can understand how very much we have in America. They will come to understand that they and their “needs” are not the center of the universe. Although I did not bring my children to Thailand with this solely in mind, I can see it being illustrated over and over again. Experiences like this forced my children to grow up differently. Events like this contribute to the belief that we should not take things for granted and to live with a profound sense of gratitude for what we have.

It is the squealing pigs that impact my children the most, out of all or Thailand experiences. They are being drug to their death on a rope while their owners whack them on the head repeatedly, moving them closer to the campfires to singe off their hair. This Thai tribe is half Chinese and they are celebrating Chinese New Year by killing their pig for the feast. My children are visibly upset. We usher them away and down another dirt road in the village but are met with another family and their terrorized pig. We turn a corner and there is a third family working on the same act.

This is life here in the tiny remote Thai village, very far from Pennsylvania, but very real nonetheless. As parents, we might try to protect our children from frightening things, but I also believe in putting BIG LIFE right in front of them, so they have to go through it, even if it makes them uncomfortable, even if it is scary.  It reminds me of the song the kids acted out when they were young, “The Bear Hunt.” “Going on a bear hunt, I’m not afraid, can’t go around it, gotta go through it.” What began with the storms and the river fords and the snow fields on the Continental Divide Trail is just continuing here in Thailand.

On another village to village trek in the hill country, our personal guide cannot speak much English. He carries a large machete, which fascinates 9-year-old Bryce. When I ask him what it is for, he says, “To kill things.” But really, he uses it to fashion bamboo presents for my kids.

He doesn’t speak when he creates something, just begins whittling with his machete: a hiking stick, cups, a thermos, out of bamboo. Since bamboo has a natural floor every 16 inches or so, he uses a section to make a water container, then fashions a plug to keep the water in. Then he makes a pea shooter with a narrow piece and wads wet paper inside it….homemade toys from the jungle, for life is simple and basic here ( no video games, computers or smart phones for entertainment.)

One evening, the kids bat an empty plastic water bottle back and forth with some local kids in a dirt lot. The water bottle is their “toy.” No need for language in words, they are communicating through smiles and laughter and by playing together.

When we stop in at a school and the kids sit in their desks and look at the dirt floor and the blackboard, they are thinking of their own lives and comparing and contrasting.

In the schoolyard, the boys are entertaining themselves with a top spinning game. They fling a top out onto the dirt yard and it “does battle” with the other spinning tops, trying to bowl it over and stop it. When my kids try their hand at it, it just sort of flops over for they can’t master the technique in only one or two tries. But they get an “A” for effort and enjoy interacting with the children on their level.

Back at home, my children were never the type to want material things. They rarely saw television, were not enticed by commercials nor laden by peer pressure to own the latest stuff.  These experiences with rural Thai children, however, and seeing how little they have, teaches them volumes about gratitude and how much is truly necessary in order to be happy.

About the time Todd and I were contemplating whether or not  to take the family to Thailand, Sierra was sitting on our living room sofa, when she discovered that if she pounded the pillow, a cloud of disintegrated foam dust poufs from the fabric. The sofa had been around a long time. I inherited it after my parents both died and we split up the home’s contents.

Sierra suggested, “Don’t you think we need a new sofa?”

“We could buy one, “I tell her. “Or, we could save that money and use it to go to Thailand where you can ride an elephant through the Hill tribe country and sea kayak with monkeys.

“I think the sofa is just fine,” she immediately decides, not missing a beat.

Sierra and Bryce are learning that if people are fortunate to have some disposal money after all their bills are paid; everyone has the freedom to decide how to spend it. We do not travel extensively because we are rich, as some may assume, but because travel is very important to us and our children’s education.

One of the most impacting experiences has to be when we unload our large backpack full of used sweaters and sweatshirts that we carried up to a very poor village. My friend, Susan, knew of their situation and the fact that it gets quite cold in the mountains and few have proper warm clothing. The kids went through their clothing before we left, grabbed any warm top they weren’t wearing or had outgrown. The Thai children stand in a line, ready to receive their articles and bow and say “khop khun” (thank you) after they receive it.

Susan says they will wear it every day during the cold season and pass it down for years until it literally falls apart. My children are touched to see little children expressing great joy in getting a hand-me-down old sweatshirt -such a little thing to my kids, who have so much, compared to these Thai village kids. And to think all of my children’s clothing was hand-me-downs from other family’s children. The circle of giving and sharing continues…invaluable lessons- lessons worth traveling half way around the world to have.

It occurred to me as my children were growing up, that since my parents died at a young age (both 57 years old) and my children never knew them, for the same amount of money as going to Disneyland, we could fly back to the homeland that my grandparents immigrated from. They could learn about their heritage, why their mother behaves the excited way that she does and experience REAL Italians. They could walk the streets of the same village their ancestors came from and try to find our relatives.

 Digging up Roots

(Sierra Gladfelter)

November 2005

As soon as we step into the door of our relatives in Delia, Sicily, they throw their arms around us and pepper our faces with kisses. They’ve been talking about our visit for months, and the entire family comes over to meet us – generation after generation streaming in the door. They all line up to make their rounds and we just stand there as each one pecks both our cheeks. Unfortunately we were not warned that you are supposed to kiss from left to right, so many jaws were wacked.

Our interpreter, a woman named Providence, flounders to keep up with introductions. Before long the tiny kitchen is crammed with people, kissing, hugging, and squeezing by.

Everyone is talking in Italian, tracing back the generations to where our blood pools together. The sound is deafening, everyone talking over each other and the volume rising higher and higher like the crescendo of an orchestra with everyone conducting with flamboyant hand gestures.

While this is happening, our hosts are plopping heaping plates of pasta in front of us and sawing off huge hunks of bread and pouring us drinks and grating parmesan cheese onto our noodles. Little kids are under the table playing peekaboo and the kitchen is packed like a tin of sardines and louder than a school cafeteria. I just sit there eating spaghetti, laughing in disbelief. I look over at my mom and finally get why she behaves the way she does.

Each morning, after cute Uncle Guisseppe with his round shiny face and short porky build goes off to harvest olives, Aunt Carmela lays out breakfast. She pours us cups of steaming milk, and Mom and Aunt Joann coffee, and we sit around eating rock hard toast biscuits with marmalade and try to communicate. We play games where we go through the fruit bowl pointing to a banana or a bunch of grapes and say the name in English. Then she grunts it in Italian. Sometimes Aunt Carmela rambles on and on like we understand what she is saying and finally when we can’t hold back our smiles we giggle “No capice! No capice! No capice!” And we all laugh and pat each other. Things we both can understand.

Our first full day here is Aunt Joanne’s birthday. All families live in condos- one stacked on top of the next, and at night they roll up all the doors on the garages and set up a row of tables pieced together for a party. The entire family comes. We take a seat at the chaotic table as everyone reaches for the trays heaped with Sicilian panini, bread rolls, and homemade pizza. There are dishes of fresh olives and dried tomatoes and plates of pumpkin seeds and dried chickpeas.

When everyone is finished gorging, the lights dim and in comes a massive homemade ricotta cake glowing with candles. Everyone has presents for her and mutters over and over apologizing for not making the celebration BIGGER!!! And at this point they barely even know us 24 hours!

The weekend is insane, but couldn’t be better. One day the family takes us out to the country and we help them harvest olives in the Borzellino olive groves. We learn how to rake the hard green fruit from the silvery boughs with plastic comb-like tools and funnel them into bags to go to the press. We see how the oil is pressed from the ground up fruit and the rich, cloudy green fluid is tapped into bottles.

We spend some time walking around the streets of Delia and getting to know the town. In the evenings the main piazza is bustling with men. There’s a nut vendor smoking out the square with his roaster, and old men drag wooden chairs out into the middle of the streets to sit and chat in clusters. We don’t see any women around and when we ask, Providence tells us, “They’re all in the churches praying while the men are outside talking about the women in church.”

Our days are packed with meeting relatives and cousins of my grandmother, whom I’ve never met. The whole point of us finding our relatives is my mom’s desire to share with us, her children, her family we never knew. We hop from house to house, eating pineapple cake after pineapple cake and gathering info about our ancestors.

Something we are learn right off: You can’t visit a house without eating (and every meal is a feast). Usually the first course is a heaping plate of pasta, already more food than I eat at home. This is followed by another entire meal of sausages and potatoes and breaded eggplant and fennel salad.

It’s impossible to finish such immense helpings, and our hostess insists on serving us herself so we can’t skimp on portions. I slide off helpings to Dad on the side when she has her back turned getting another dish out of the oven, though even he can’t keep up. We groan as she carries out trays heaped with fruit and roasted chestnuts and we munch these for awhile until she brings out cake and cookies.

“Mango! Mango! Mango!”she barks. “Eat! Eat! Eat!” we utter back laughing. God forbid you sit back on your chair and stop chewing. “Just keep your hands and mouth busy,” Aunt JoAnn remarks, and I try to take as long as I can to shell a chestnut.

It is amazing to find pieces of my Mom sprinkled about in all the different families. One cute little lady has the exact prominent jaw, another the same shaped nose. One cousin even has the same monstrous thighs peeking out from her hem.

I get goose bumps as we sit around the cozy kitchens tracking back the generations and uttering the names of my ancestors aloud. I can feel their spirits tingling in the air, an electric buzz of excitement as someone remembers a story, a name, Aunt JoAnn poised at the notebook. There is definitely power here as we piece together the family tree. It’s like solving a puzzle, I ruminate, the mystery of our past, and truly of who we are.

But the most touching relative we meet is a little old woman named Graziella. She is a cousin of my grandmothers, a shrunken little old lady with round bugging eyes, pale powdery skin, and who stands on her tiptoes to kiss our cheeks. She lives all alone in an empty house that was once my great-grandfathers.

She beckons us in, and my flesh prickles as I step through the door. I scan the ceiling, the walls. There is a picture of Graziella as a young woman. She looks exactly like the ones I’ve seen of my grandmother.

Before we leave, Graziella is so overtaken with happiness to find relatives when she thought she was alone that she takes mom and Aunt Joann by the arm and leads them over to the faded black and white portraits of her parents hanging on the wall. Voice shaking and eyes watering, she begins praying and thanking her parents in Italian for bringing us to her. My heart has risen so far up in my throat I have to swallow. Everyone is bawling.

By the time we leave, we have a whole new family. It’s amazing that we’ve only been in Delia for 48 hours. I feel like I’ve known everyone my whole life!

It takes a half an hour to reach the car. We make our rounds and kiss everyone twice on both cheeks. But Sicilians tend to get sidetracked, and by the time you remember you were leaving you have to start all over. We joke that we can feel calluses forming on our cheeks!

This experience of going back to find my roots left me feeling like I understood at least a small part of where I came from. Your past is what makes you who you are, all your experiences, your mistakes, the lessons you’ve learned. But digging deeper is to understand what went into making you. Tracing back your roots is like tracing back the thread that connects you to your family, to people, to the world, to the great web of life.

I think it is important for others, especially teenagers to go back and find where they came from. It gives you a sense of understanding and confidence of who you are. Roots. They give you a solid foundation to grow from.

As teenagers make the transition from child to adult, it is often a struggle to understand and become your own person. Often we attempt to sever the bonds with our families and break free, when establishing strong, hearty ties are a necessity. When it comes down to it, shoots can’t grow without their roots. How else can we grow to become our own beautiful and independent tree?

MY TWO CENTS

(Cindy) 

I brought my children to Sicily so they could learn who their people are. It has nothing to do with the amount of time spent together or how much you have in common but on your capacity to care. And even though it may not be in your nature, like Todd, it can be infectious and come easy when the people you are sharing with possess a huge capacity. I would never have has believed my German husband could even deal with it, yet alone enjoy it and thrive in that environment. Todd always said says he has only three relationships, but he now has a boatload in Sicily and they aren’t even in his bloodline. It doesn’t matter, you’re “in the family.” Sierra & Bryce can decide which parts of them- German reserved or Sicilian demonstrative, they want to nurture in themselves, or both at different times. Another amazing lesson was although we lacked actual shared conversation, affection can be more powerful than the spoken word.

The children spent most of that 48 hours mesmerized listening and absorbing, learning about their grandparents. Knowing who came before, gave them a glimpse into who they are today. What a gift to know this at 15 & 13 years old. This experience could never be found at Disneyland.