Colorado Rockies | And 2 Makes Crazy

Look! We all love a naked baby photo shoot. To prove it, I’ll share a couple of my favorites.

Here is Maxwell. Fat. Naked. Happy. Glorious! I am a proud momma.

And here, on the beach of Spain, is our other glorious child, Maxwell’s sister, Adelyne. Sandy. Free. Naked. Perfect! I am a proud momma.

But I am not a fan of naked adults that decide the Great Outdoors is where they, too, should exercise. Naked. Well—a small strip of clothing did accompany this person…I’ll get there in a moment.

I know. I know. Get to the naked rollerblader, eh?! I can’t. Not yet. You have to hear a little history first.

And it goes like this…

My husband and I are really big into camping. Well, to be honest, it’s because it’s very economical-and, for the most part, we are rather…um…stable (note-that means not wealthy). And, secondly, it’s because my husband is a former mountaineering/white-water-rafting guide (Colorado Rockies and Arkansas River).

Thus, when we traverse the glorious diversity of this fabulous continent called Europe, we mainly camp. In tents. With sleeping bags. And eat rice. Sometimes we add salt to the rice 😉 (Oh, heavens! This reminds me of Stinky Feet Jake…He must return in a future blog! It’s a promise I’ll bring Stinky Feet Jake back to life.)

And we love it.

In fact, one summer before we had children and we actually had about $300 to our name, we decided we needed a short vacation. So we bought our train tickets, loaded our bikes, and headed off to Austria. First stop on our journey (that’s after traveling through Poland and Czech on very old and noisy and SLOW trains)-Salzburg. The Hills Were Alive with the Sound of Mozart!

After our short Salzburg adventure, we took the train to Linz. And from Linz is where the real adventure began.

The Plan: Bike from Linz to Vienna, along the Danube, through the Austrian Alps.

Sleep where we could lay our heads.

Eat our rice.

Enjoy the wind blowing through our hair—er—bike helmets.

The End.

And absolutely everything we needed was in our bike packs. Oooh boy, those bikes were heavy.

Note to all of those that don’t like to exercise: Biking through the Austrian Alps with packs full of camping gear…Yeah. Better not go there. Tough stuff. Nuff said.

We were young. We had energy. We had bikes. We loved exercise (I am obviously not the same present-day-person as this adventurous gal)! And we were off!

The scenery was as breathtaking as you can imagine. And we slept in AWESOME spots.

One night, we were so tired as we biked slowly into a little village that we found the first available spot—a field of sunflowers. Sunflowers that reached the sky. And we were surrounded by them. And we threw our sleeping bags on the ground in this field. And we threw our weary bodies, without dinner, into our bags, and we dreamed beautiful dreams. After all, we were sleeping in a field of sunflowers.

Actually—that’s not true. We were in a glorious field of sunflowers, but it started to rain on us. And so we pulled out the tarp—but we refused to make the tent. So we threw the tarp over our sleeping bags and tucked our heads in and BAM. Lights out for us! Rain did not impede our slumber.

The next morning we woke up to misty sleeping bags and smiling sunflowers. A post card to be sure.

And we were off again. No time to lose. No money to lose time.

And that’s when it happened. The Naked Rollerblader.

BUT BEFORE THE NAKED ROLLERBLADER THERE WAS MORE NAKEDNESS. EVERYWHERE!

Woe.To.Me!

So, Rich and I are biking along a path of the river that is rather calm. And there are many sunbathers—both next to the river and on the other side of the path.

I spotted them ALL immediately. Naked. Naked. Naked as the day they were born. Naked.

And, not being Pamela Andersen, I sternly cautioned my husband…

“Don’t look to the left!

And…

“Don’t look to the right!”

And, being the gentleman that he is (or scared of his wife’s wrath—wise man), he said, “Okay.”

But—I couldn’t prepare anyone for what was going to happen next.

As we’re finally getting out of the naked war zone, someone zooms past us on rollerblades.

And this someone was a young lady…without clothes…wearing only a string of underwear. Yep. Right in front of us.

What could I do? Yell, “Don’t look straight!”

She was obviously trapped a couple Millennial back, preparing for the Olympics of Ancient Greece. Naked.

And just like there are winners and losers at the Olympics, I seceded present-day victory.