Will You Go Out With Me?: Skinny Dip Edition 

Ahhhh… summer in Vermont. When Ryan and I were still living in Brooklyn I’d stand on the disgustingly hot and stinky subway platform reading Vermont Life magazine and cry. The photos of expansive green fields and refreshing swimming holes made me so very homesick for my Vermont childhood. I knew there was no other place I’d be willing to raise my own children.

Since we moved here five years ago, we’ve made it a point to take advantage of every summer activity we can think of. Those dreamy swimming holes I missed so much now figure prominently into our weekly plans. Our kids love them for the many options they present: swim! throw rocks! hunt for creatures! We love them for their shade, the fact that they’re almost never crowded and the adventure that’s often involved in locating them.

One thing we don’t do often (read: ever) is seek out these places sans kids. So when a friend recently told us about a little-known spot in Waterbury that she said was great for skinny dipping, our date was set.

We left our house on a blazingly hot and sunny afternoon, turned onto I-89 south, then instantly faced a wall of dark clouds. It was obviously raining where we were headed, and my weather app warned me that strong thunderstorms were moving through the area. But what are a few rain clouds when you and your husband are embarking on your first mid-day skinny dipping mission? We would not be deterred.

The ride was predictably gorgeous — this being the aforementioned summer in Vermont, which shines even under rainy conditions — and our anticipation level was delightfully high. The whole trip felt to me like ditching class to go do something mischievous and exciting. It’s safe to say that Ryan’s life is generally more thrilling than mine, but I could tell that he was feeling it, too. We were, after all, on a mission to get naked in public.

We turned onto Camel’s Hump Road and noticed that, even though the dirt road leads to just one place, passing cars were more frequent than we’d expected. Once we located the exact spot our source had identified, there was really only one thing left to do.