It started out innocently enough. Sheryl and I were sending rapid-fire texts to each other about brunch on Sunday, when I finally gave up the fight and called her. I told her I was planning on going to Burchfield Park to check out the hiking trails, and asked if she wanted to go. Sheryl's always up for any adventure, so she was in. After a fantastic breakfast at the Fleetwood (biscuits with sausage gravy!), Sheryl and I stopped at Target for mosquito repellent (note the foreshadowing here) and headed to the park.
We pulled in, paid the entrance fee, and asked the attendant for a trail map. She handed us one, and when I asked where a good place was to start, like a trail head, she stared blankly at us, and told us she had never been on the trails and therefore didn't know. Sheryl started driving toward the picnic shelters and parking lots. We parked, changed our shoes, and watched many people vacate the beach when the thunder clapped and rain clouds moved in overhead. Oh, and we vigorously applied the aforementioned mosquito repellent.
After studying what must be one of the worst trail maps I've seen in a while, we just started trudging toward the woods, hoping we would find a sign or something. We eventually did, deciphered it the best we could, and started on our journey. The rain was actually a welcome diversion. With the protection from the trees, we felt a few drops, but enjoyed that it seemed to cool off just a little bit. We walked for quite a while, stopping periodically to check out the trail signs, and caught up on life along the way.
We came to a part where the trail narrowed, forcing us to walk single-file. I heard Sheryl utter a mortified laugh (if you've heard it, you know what I mean!) and say, "You should SEE the back of your shirt! Stop for a minute." I did, and she cleared what must've been a billion mosquitoes off of me, while we both started slapping our arms to kill the little blood-suckers. The path widened, then narrowed again, and I was walking behind Sheryl and saw what she was talking about. The back of her shirt was horrifying. We kept up our conversation, muttering expletives and hitting ourselves (and each other) every minute or two as we completed our four-mile walk, with most of it in the midst of a swarm of mosquitoes.
I counted the bites on my left arm this morning - from mid-forearm to shoulder, there were 30. I couldn't bear to count the bites on my other arm, or anywhere else for that matter. Suffice it to say, they've been itching all day. I don't know what they are doing at Burchfield Park, but I think they should look into why the mosquitoes there have mutated to the point of being immune to repellent. Of course, I assume it's an issue with the mosquitoes, not the repellent. Perhaps a flaw, but I content that those mosquitoes were unlike any I've ever seen.
I decided to rock out the Crayola markers and a Sharpie (that's for you, Sean) to commemorate the trip with a bit of artwork, and as you see, I will never have a partner for Pictionary again due to my horrible skills.
3 comments:
On what surface did you craft your illustration? It appears smooth and rounded, like an egg or a Wii nunchuk. If Jaycees ever decide to do a quilting bee, I think this illustration deserves its own square. Now, have you tried connecting your bites with a Sharpie to see if the super-mosquitoes left you a message from their evil supervillain overlord? I started to write a short story back in junior high about an evil genius who breeds mutant mosquitoes to swarm and inject air bubbles into people's blood streams instead of sucking their blood to cause an epidemic of blood clot induced heart attacks. I didn't get much past the title: "Muskeeta." ... I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I ended up teaching literature instead of writing it.
I'm happy to have stumped you with my artsy medium. It is, I hate to say, garden-variety white copy paper. My brilliant photography skills made it look amazing. I had thought to use the little Microsoft Painter, but in the interest of time, whipped out the Crayolas instead. I had also considered posting pictures of my arm, but realized it's really difficult to take a picture of my own upper arm. I couldn't get the angle quite right. I did play around with the timer, but it was just all wrong.
I'm guessing if I connected the bites with a Sharpie that it would spell out PEN15, so I haven't bothered :)
You should really go to bed, or maybe start working on "Muskeeta." Perhaps my drawing could be your cover art?
My bug bites still itch. Misquetos SUCK!
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