Read Naked at Lunch for Free Online Page A

my wife good-bye and hit the road.
    I know what you’re thinking and I have to admit that it did feel strange to be going to a nudist resort to lie around naked with other naked people without her. But I had questions that needed answers. Questions like: What did it feel like to be naked in a social setting? What was the appeal?
    I would like to say that the drive from Los Angeles to Palm Springs was, as Joan Didion famously said, “haunted by the Mojave just beyond the mountains, devastated by the hot dry Santa Ana wind,” 11 but really the freeway is a traffic-clogged strip of concrete bordered by an endless barrage of logo litter—corporate signage for Applebee’s and Del Taco and Petco and everyone else who’s got some business selling something out there with a sign to prove it—punctuated by the occasional billboard for a “gentlemen’s club” and cell phone towers disguised as non-native trees.
    It’s only after you enter the pass that cuts between the San Jacinto and San Bernadino Mountains that the landscape begins to change. The sprawl of suburban housing developments and shitty fast-food restaurants gives way to scrubby desert, railroad tracks, and a high-end outlet mall where busloads of tourists gorge on discounted luxury goods and designer clothes. The freeway passes the mall and then you’re greeted by an architectural aberration, the skyscraperish Morongo Casino, run by the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, which juts out of the surrounding desert like an unwanted boner.
    Past the casino, mountains rise up on both sides of the freeway and the road drops down into the Coachella Valley, a vast expanse of brown dotted by more than three thousand windmills, their white blades rotating in the wind. Normally I love seeing the windmills, but this time I got a queasy feeling. Were they a metaphor for my own quixotic quest? Or was this the first hint of heretofore unknown gymnophobia?
    There’s a buzzer at the entrance to the Desert Sun Resort. There are no windows, no flashing neon, just a discreet sign and a large wooden door. A security camera eyeballed me from overhead. I pushed the button, announced myself, and a friendly voice told me to “come on in.”
    The resort is on one of the main streets just north of downtown Palm Springs, but you wouldn’t know it was a clothing-free facility if you walked by. It looks like most of the other Mojave-blasted stucco complexes in the area, only this one has high walls and lush foliage creating a barricade against the outside world.
    An affable man in a bright yellow polo shirt checked me in and walked me through a surprisingly extensive list of rules. Many of the rules were typical of any resort—admonitions to shower before entering the pool, to use the hot tub at your own risk, and not to bring pets into the guest rooms. Then there were some that I had never seen before:
     
Overt sexual behavior, or the appearance of overt sexual behavior, is strictly prohibited.
Proper naturist etiquette requires use of a towel while seated when nude.
Do not use cell phones/laptops/cameras/stereos anywhere on the resort except for inside hotel rooms. iPads, Kindles, or tablets are permitted on the grounds if a Desert Sun Resort business card is taped over the camera lens.
Do not gawk at guests.
Do not wear swimming suits/undergarments at any time for any reason. No clothing is necessary at any time, anywhere within the facility.
    Which didn’t mean that nudity was required everywhere at all times. You can slip on a pair of shorts or a shirt if you really want to. Just not around the pool.
    The resort is large and attractive, with villas and courtyard suites set around landscaped ponds and man-made streams. There are tennis courts, a restaurant, a spa, and three separate pool areas. My room was in what they called the Chaparral Hotel, which turned out to be a classic motel that had been given a cosmetic upgrade and was right next to the activity pool. The room was