The last time I chimed in, we were in Brattleboro, VT.

(E:matthew) and I are so freakin sunburned from a skinny dipping mecca called the Ledges in VT , (e:terry) is not burned so bad



We had a great time jumping off the ledges. Some kid and his girlfriend climbed up to the top rock, the climbed 30 feet into the air up a tree, and then jumped from there. I lost those kind of guts at 23 I think. I was able to swing and jump from the lower two ledges.



There were lots of naked people, but just like every freakin' nudist treasure we have visited, everyone else naked at the place was 50+, but 80% of those people are 70+. I don't mean to sound ageist and if the old people and happy naked, more power to them, however, there comes a point were it just isn't even fun to watch people's old flab flop. I saw enough sagging and drooping for a lifetime.

I always wonder why there are no naked younger people, by young I mean 30 and younger. I can't imagine anyone has any reason to be shy around most of the people at these places and a lot of the places themselves are freakin' amazing.

It seems like in all the old books that dave has, there are plenty of young folk. Of course most of the info was from the 70s and most of those people are probably the same old people I saw today only saggier.

At least there were some people. A lot of the places we looked at were totally deserted, seemingly unused since they were written about in the guide book.

One place was converted from nudist to clothed but it was awesome anyways. It was a marble quary that they converted to a swimming hole. It was totally amazing, like a giant marble swimming pool, that could hold hundreds of people and went down about 70 feet. (Link to (e:matthews)'s journal with pics and web site)

When we were in Brattleboro, we checked the weather. To our dissapointment, we found that it is supposed to thunderstorm the rest of our trip from portland, ME to Norfolk, VA I so there is no escaping it.

Here are some pics of (e:matthew) applying sunburn aloe.

Little tidbits of information. I never want to be at the mercy of any little tibits of cross-generational, non-indexed, unsearchable text that might as well have been written on little scaps of paper and cast to sea in a bottle.

Weird place, it was an inertesting glimpse into country gay culture and definatly wasn't for me. Half is a nudist family area on a creek with some pools and the rest seems to be a sleezy outdoor bathhouse. We should have known when we saw the porn magazines strewn through the wood.

We talked to some guys named Al and Kevin drinking beer in the creek. The only thing I liked about him was that he guessed I was the youngest out of the three. He tried to get me to leave him my sock - said he had some foot fetish. He tried with (e:matthew) too. I told him that socks arn't free. He tried to impress us by telling us about his love for Cher. The whole thing was like a comedy skit.

Al told us that a very rich woman owned the estate the creek was on and left it to the state on condition they provided a nudist area and allowed gay people. The scary part is there is also some whacko who hunts gay people with a gun. They showed us all the bullets everywhere, some targets and two large trees he shot down. Apparently, he is some 300lb mountain man with long, greasy black hair and he hates that gay people go there. The whole thing was too much for me, it seemed not worth ever visiting again although the run in with Al and Kevin was an interesting glimpse into poor country gay culture and Cher is ironically a part of it.

The last two days were great accept for the massive amount of flies on the fourth. I rowed a lot. My arms feel much more buff, but it really has no purpose as I will spend the next month typing.

Today, we left camp at the lake to head over to some beach on a creek. (E:matthew) hates moving to new places. Even the move between camp sites makes him crazy.

Wow, the things we forgot. Toiletpaper, propane, and pants. Who needs pants. Especially if you don't have toiletpaper ;) . No luckily, there were ferns and a great big lake to wash up in around the island.

We made it through a huge lightning and rain storm by building a makeshift shelter out of tarps. The lightning hit the lake.

(e:matthew) came up with the best business idea ever. We will be rich soon. Just wait.

These are the journals I wrote everyday but couldn't send.

I am so crippled without the internet. I was looking at dave's xm radio. It works in the middle of nowhere because it is listening to a satellite. I want to know how xm knows that dave's paid his bill. I asked him if it had a simcard. He said that he didn't have any idea what a sim card was. Oh god, I just want to know how it works right now.

Whenever we go on these trips I end up having so many questions. I think I must ask the internet 1000 questions a day in one form or another.

Not having it seems so cut off.

So we pull over because of an accident in this tiny little town and I think., "hm, I am next to a store, maybe there is internet." and sure enough, the factory default NETGEAR network cam eto the rescue. I wish I had realized this would happen and had brought my laptop.

It won't stop raining and shouldn't stop till the end of our trip. I can't wait for the freakin' taste of buffalo. It sounds so samn tasty.

Tmobile sucks out here. I haven't had cell service since the trip satrted and we got to the adirondacks. I kept writing journal entries but I had no way to send them. I guess you guys will get the stories all at once.

We are some little town in vermont. I just realized that just about everywhere in the USA there are free wirless home and business networks. Like, I knew it before, but here we are in the tiniest little town and there are four. My cell phone hasn't worked the entire time we were in Vermont or in the adirondacks

I'm getting buffer everyday that i move instead of type. (e:matthew) took this great photo of me. He is such a good photographer.



I miss my journal so bad it makes me sick. I wrote a hundred million things I will have to post later because I need to go now.

Here's the obligatory one the way post. I hope it works because I was tampering with the moblogging system before I left. I know this a real vacation because I don't have a computer but I do have a whole full pouch of rolling tobacco, a raft and a towel. Tomorrow I will be swimming around naked in the middle of nowhere. I know my phone doesn't work there. At least it didn't last year - maybe t-mobile expanded it's footprint.

(e:emilyjane) might be coming out to meet us. I told her to just yell in the forest till we hear her. I hope that works!!

It's always best not to make a milion changes just before you leave town for the middle of nowhere but I didn't follow my own advice so hopefully yhe site works while I'm away. If not I'm sorry.

Check out the site poetry link. See ya peeps.

NEW YORK - New York officials on Wednesday unveiled a new plan for the Freedom Tower at Ground Zero, saying the 1,776-foot-tall skyscraper had been redesigned to meet security concerns and would be even more elegant than originally envisioned.

Police had refused to sign off on the building's design two months ago, voicing concerns that its base was too close to the sidewalk and could not be adequately protected against a truck bomb attack.

Because of the changes, the 20-ton granite cornerstone that was laid with great fanfare by New York Gov. George Pataki last Fourth of July will have to be moved.

Quoted from: HoustonChronicle.com - Freedom Tower design tweaked for security

That thing is so gonna get blown up. I hate to sound callous but if anyone dies it in, I honestly won't even feel bad for them - unless it is (e:hodown) and even then it will only last about 5 minutes. After the original towers were bombed and then blown up, who would ever set foot in the new even more groteque "freedom tower." It's just screaming bring me down. I can almost here George Bush's texas twang when I say freedom in my head now. That word has become so perverted at this point.