fuzzygruf | Naked Square Dance Weekend

Attended my second "Peel-Off" of the year this weekend.

After I got home from work on Friday, I checked my email and then called John. He and Chip were on their way over to the flat. They ate some of the leftover pizza from the sing-a-long, then we loaded up the car and headed to Guerneville. Typical early Friday afternoon traffic, but at least we had good travel companions.

The road up to Wildwood was indeed wild. It was a very narrow, winding road, that seemed to embrace the many sheer dropoffs. I had some stomach troubles earlier in the day. This road (with Steve driving) certainly didn't help. Luckily we encountered no cars coming towards us going down the mountain. I was happy to arrive at the resort in one piece and with clean shorts.

We checked in with Jeff H., introduced ourselves to our roommates, then found our room. Small room, two beds. Bathroom was right across the hall. Berr and Sean were fine as roommates (we weren't in the room much), but I'd certainly prefer a private room. Like the rest of the weekend, it was ok for me, but not ideal. Being six miles out-of-town off a treacherous road, we were "stuck" there for the entire weekend.

All meals were provided. I'd let Gary D. know ahead of time that I was on Atkins. There was always something I could have, but not much of a choice. The first night we had salmon for dinner, and that was fantastic.

I packed too much stuff. For a naked event, you never know. It did get cool enough at night to alternate between a flannel shirt and a sweatshirt. Glad I brought those. I spent most of the weekend naked. It's such a non-issue. The only thing "odd" for me this weekend was that there were women on staff at the resort. Most looked more butch than many of the guests, so I didn't give it much thought. I'm sure they didn't either.

It was a totally non-sexual weekend for me. I didn't get hard once. With occasional stomach problems, my libido was low. It's always nice to see guys who go from limp to hard and back again, though. Such growers!

It was nice to be out of the City and secluded. We wandered over to "Julie Andrews Point" a few times. It did indeed look like the hills were alive. We watched the stars from there the very first night.

Dancing was ok. Todd Fellegy was a very competent caller. He at least got naked more often than Howard R. did in May during the Peel-Off in Palm Springs. He wasn't nearly as challenging as the callers from the FCD fly-in the previous weekend. They had quite a bit of challenge-level dancing throughout the weekend. They divided the different sessions so that Plus & Advanced were together most of the weekend.

With just a few dancers at one of the "guest" caller sessions, Rich Reel egged me on to dance A2 with just four of us dancing. Michael Levy called and did most of the two pair calls. I did pretty well. I really appreciated the practice.

That night, all levels were in one hall. They had 6 people for a C1 tip. They recruited Mark, a competent A2 dancer to join them. They needed a 7th. No one could do that level. They asked me several times, and I declined. They finally convinced me to join them, letting me know they'd pull me through it. It turned out to be the highpoint of my weekend. There were several Advanced calls during the tip, and I did most of those just fine with no coaxing. I had no clue on the C1-specific calls, but I instinctively did the parts I could figure out ("Scoot & Scatter" must start like all other "Scoot" calls, right?). The rest of the dancers helped me enormously by stating definitions as they reached me. ("Trade." "Just a regular recycle for us." "Just hang on!") It was fun, and the square didn't break down. It was probably the most helpful group of C1 dancers that could have been in the square.

That night after dancing, Brad gathered a small group of guys to play "Feudalism." (Although at times I thought maybe it should be "Futilism.") It was easy-to-learn, and was fun. You really need at least 4 players for it. (We'd love to teach another couple to play. Wanna come over some night?) I was the "big winner" for the first couple hands, so you can see it's easy to learn. We played until about 11:30pm then went to bed.

With no City noise or lights, I slept each morning until 8am. With roommates, I didn't sleep too soundly, and still managed to be tired at 8am. At least the weekend was fairly relaxing and not high energy like the previous weekend.

I did some more A2 dancing in the morning. I felt really good about most of it. My A1/A2 class is going to be a breeze. Learning Advanced is going to let me do a LOT more dancing. Some guys in town ONLY dance with Midnight Squares, which dances Advanced and higher. Always good to meet more men. :-)

After lunch, we packed up and left the resort just after 2pm. After dropping off Chip & John, we got home around 4:30pm. I was bushed. I napped for awhile, watched Sex and the City with Steve, then went back to bed.