Back in 2014, a friend invited me to celebrate Memorial Day weekend in Palm Springs. That was it. No elaborate sales pitch. No carefully crafted itinerary. Just an invitation to spend a few days at the now-defunct Bearfoot Inn, a small clothing-optional resort tucked away in the desert.
Now, I’m not much of a nudist. But when in Rome, even my pale-skinned ass will drop trou and join the festivities. I guess that makes me “nudist adjacent.” Not that anybody cared. Nudity was truly optional, and my friend already knew most of the guests gathered there for the holiday weekend.
After lathering myself in enough sunscreen to protect a small army, I joined everybody at the pool and quickly understood why people kept coming back year after year.
There were only about a dozen rooms, which gave the place the feel of a strange little summer camp for gay adults temporarily escaping real life. The men ran the full spectrum of ages, backgrounds, personalities, and body types. And somehow, over the course of that long weekend, a group of relative strangers slowly relaxed into something that felt weirdly familiar and comfortable.
Maybe it was the desert heat baking away every ounce of stress I’d carried in with me. Maybe it was the poolside cocktails. Maybe it was the bizarrely freeing realization that once everybody is naked, nobody has anything left to prove.
Or maybe it was simply the fact that for one glorious long holiday weekend, the outside world beyond Bearfoot’s locked gate stopped mattering.
No deadlines. No doomscrolling. No endless stream of bad news vibrating in my pocket every thirty seconds. Just sunshine, laughter, music, chlorine, and a bunch of bears and bear-adjacent men relaxing and enjoying each other’s company.
Honestly, it felt less like a vacation and more like accidental time travel.
Back then, Memorial Day weekends in Palm Springs had a very specific energy. The hotels were packed. Every resort had some sort of pool party. Every restaurant had a wait. Every patio had a crowd. And nearly every conversation somehow started with “Where are you visiting from?” before turning into a twenty-minute life story involving ex-boyfriends, real estate, and casual flirtation.
And yet it never felt frantic.
That’s the part I miss most.
Nobody seemed particularly interested in curating content or building a personal brand. People were just there. Existing. Relaxing. Flirting badly. Drinking too much. Dancing awkwardly in their birthday suits. And reapplying sunscreen with varying levels of success.
Social media existed, of course, but it hadn’t yet swallowed every human experience whole. Most people weren’t documenting the weekend in real time for strangers online. We were simply living it.
That first trip also taught me something I didn’t fully appreciate until years later: joy does not always arrive in the form you expect.
Sometimes joy is extravagant. Sometimes it changes your life forever.
And sometimes joy is floating in a pool from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. while a naked man named Rick explains why he left Ohio in 1987 and never looked back.
I went back to Bearfoot Inn several more times over the years because once you find a place that allows your nervous system to unclench, you hold onto it for dear life.
Despite one of the owners being a complete asshole, every visit felt comfortingly familiar. The same dry desert air. The same warm nights. The same slightly chaotic mix of personalities orbiting in and around the pool.
It became one of those rare places where time moved differently.
Not slower exactly. But softer.
And deep down, I think I always knew it couldn’t last forever.
Then came the pandemic, and like so many small independent businesses that served niche communities, Bearfoot Inn quietly disappeared not long afterward. No dramatic farewell. No grand finale. Just another beloved little place erased by economics, timing, and a world that changed too fast.
For me, that’s the strangest thing about getting older. I’m slowly realizing how many of the places that shaped my happiest memories no longer exist anywhere except in my memories.
The bookstores disappear. The bars close. The diners become condos. The weird little motels with mismatched patio furniture and questionable towels vanish into history.
But the memories stay.
And every Memorial Day weekend, part of me still drifts back there. Back to Palm Springs. Back to the desert heat. Back to a lounge chair beside a sparkling pool where nobody cared what year it was, what was trending online, what you were (or weren’t) wearing, or whether or not your life looked impressive from the outside.
For a few beautiful weekends, it was enough just to be alive.
Which, these days, feels like the most luxurious form of time travel imaginable.
Keep calm and celebrate on!
Clint 🌈✌️
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Yep! This is in part why we spend our winters there! Great place, beautiful weather, and a very welcoming community.
I used to visit the Santiago in Palm Springs a couple times every winter. I usually had work to do for a couple hours in the morning, but it was nice to be away from phones and by the pool.