It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. It’s cold, it’s wet, and it’s windy. Finally time to perform the fall ritual of putting away all of the sunscreen and other supplies I cart with me on my beach trips. I actually haven’t been beaching since the first week of September. Vacation time ended and with the start of the NFL season it only leaves me with Saturdays to head out if the weather’s right. Well the stars didn’t quite align and I wasn’t able to make any more visits which made for a rather short season. I suppose that it was sort of an average summer around these parts. Spring was really wet and we didn’t get any really hot weather until August which was kind of strange.

It’s been said many times in many different ways by those far wiser and more articulate than me that time tends to move by faster as you get older. I crossed the threshold of 40 this year and I’m here to tell you how true that statement is. I distinctly remember somewhere around 1980 thinking how far in the future the year 2000 was. I was 12 at the time that seemed like an eternity away.  I can still recall figuring out how old I’d be when the time came. Here we are in 2008 now and that year 2000 I was so obsessed with all those years ago is vanishing into the past far too quickly for my liking.

Am I due for some sort of a mid life crisis? I don’t really know. Maybe it already started a few years ago when I began going to nude beaches and exercising regularly. I guess that doesn’t seem so bad as both mentally and physically I feel pretty good and seem to be much more relaxed. No urges to buy a sports car and date a 20 year old, at least not yet.

Gas prices are climbing higher and higher and I can’t help that at some point it’ll have an affect on people, if it hasn’t already. There do seem to be a larger number of people driving slower on the highway now in an effort to save on fuel I would assume.

I’ve got four summers behind me now with this hobby and very few people know about it. Friends and family have been kept out of the picture as I’m not sure how they’d react to the news. I suspect that there are a great many people in that position. Society in general isn’t quite as open minded as we’d like it to be so there’s a bit of a stigma attached to being any sort of naturist. I prefer to err on the side of caution and keep this my own little secret although a few people do know. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to run into somebody I know out there. Depending on who it is I suppose there would be a bit of initial embarrassment followed by the mutual realization that you’ve got something in common. You’d think no harm done.

There are truly some amazing sunsets to be witnessed at Patricia Beach. I was there for about 3 of them this year and the photographic evidence is in the gallery as I managed to score some amazing shots. It almost looks like I know what I’m doing, if only I could manage to hold the damn camera straight.

It’s October now and all of the green is gradually disappearing to be replaced by a myriad of reds and yellows. Sad to think of what’s to come but one way or another we’ll make it through another long, cold, and dark winter.

Stay warm and see you again next summer.

- October 2008

Last Updated November 1, 2008

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