ST, I used products containing 100% DEET and I think at the time I had one shirt that was impregnated with permethrin (since then I am in the habit of giving all of my garments a dose). Nevertheless, none of it was apparently at DentonDoc "lethal" dosage-levels so I STILL had to keep my Bug Shirt on almost ALL the time at that particular site. That gets a little frustrating when you got to take a bite of food and end up jabbing a wad of bug net right into your mouth... which ends up "goo-ing up" the net on your face and, in turn, drawing other bugs!
TomT, re: "Today's POD.... I have no words.
"
Well, a certain phrase came to my mind almost IMMEDIATELY after I made a horrible discovery the night before: "HOW STUPID CAN I BE?"
I had set up my Lean 3 shelter on a thick bed of Caribou Moss. For some reason, I had either elected not to lay down my ground tarp OR (God help me if I was this dumb) I might not even have brought it along for that trip. Anyway, it had not occurred to me that mosquitoes HAVE TO SLEEP SOMEPLACE during the daytime hours OR, if it did occur to me, I did not associate Caribou Moss with their place of slumber. So, roundabout 11:00 pm, when I had already been sound asleep for an hour or so, I had a RUDE AWAKENING when I suddenly realized I was well into an all-out red alert mosquito infestation and being actively bit all over my face, head & shoulders. They had emerged from the Caribou Moss and were now EVERYWHERE!
Fortunately, as some of you are aware, I have back-up systems for my back-up systems (ie. I carry a lot of crap with me). In my pack was a small solo pop-up shelter... the one you see set up within my Lean 3 in today's POD. I suppose it would have been rather amusing had there been an on-looker to watch me swat ferociously while frantically setting up that danged little (non-self-standing) shelter. I can only imagine what those streams of head lamp light shooting in every which direction might have looked like. Hey, I was in a panic. Even when I was able to slide into my pop-up and zip it shut, it was another 20 minutes of swatting and wiggling around in my sleeping bag to encourage the little vampires down by my feet to flutter up within arm's length... where I could nail them. It was painstaking and it was ugly.
Perhaps worse yet was the hour when dawn approached. I think it was that sinister drone of the skeeter hordes that woke me to a rather dim sunrise. Why dim, you say?... and here you will think me mad but the truth of it was this: Literally, millions upon millions of skeeters occluded the entire height and breadth of the mosquito netting on the outside of my Lean 3. You think I jest? Bah!! Never, ever, EVER have I seen (or heard) the likes of it. I mean, it was bad enough INSIDE of my Lean 3 but on the outside?! Holy ______!! I wouldn't have thought one person could produce enough CO2 trails while snoring to attract so many... a thought which only served to remind me of how hungry they must be!
Accordingly, I didn't want to leave my little shelter. Eventually, I did and it was bad enough just on the INSIDE of the Lean 3. To go OUTSIDE was almost unimaginable... and it stayed unimaginable right up until Mother Nature called me in a way which I could not refuse.
Such a conundrum I had never faced in the wilderness. What was I to do?!! To drop my drawers outdoors anywhere around that particular campsite would have risked complete exsanguination. Thus, I was wholly confounded as to how to address the growing imperative.
Bottom line: Mother Nature is not one to be refused. However, by creating my necessity, She also became Mother of my invention as a few of my brain cells kicked in to save the day. A PERFECT solution to my dilemma dawned on me, as follows: I suddenly remembered, WE WERE BREAKING THIS HORRIBLE CAMP WITHIN THE HOUR. My flash of brilliance...Why don't I turn my humble abode into an OUTHOUSE?
Well, as I am fond of saying, "Have orange trowel, will travel." In that instance, however, I didn't travel far. Rather, I hurriedly packed up my gear as I swatted the resident mosquitoes (as opposed to the legions that waited on the outside) then I dug me a little hole into & under my thick bed of caribou moss and, well... the rest was history.
In retrospect, I like to think of my last action there as an appropriate "salute", of sorts, signifying my feelings about that particular campsite. After accommodating Mother Nature, I quickly tore down my outhouse, and hauled my gear over to the water, where DentonDoc patiently waited on me, seemingly unbothered whatsoever by the swarms buzzing around us. Content with my success, I enthusiastically jumped into our tandem and vowed NEVER to return to that godforsaken hell-hole of a campsite at the edge of the swamp.
Anyhow, as Paul Harvey might have said, "That's the rest of the story" behind today's POD, "A Prison Cell In Mosquito Hell."
Jimbo
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2020 - Picture of the day - POD (cont. 28) (Read 199911 times)
