The Aerie
[Andy Rooney] Didja ever wonder why some lakes are "Lake So-and-so",
while others are "Such-and-such Lake"? I mean, we have our own example
right here: Como Lake in St. Paul has a namesake in Italy's famous
Lake Como.[/Andy Rooney]
I was thinking of this as I got ready for our family camping weekend
at Lake Maria State Park (pronounced, by the way, like the wind:
Mar-EYE-a). Looking at the map of the area, I noticed something odd:
there in the state park was Lake Maria... and just to the northwest,
outside the park... was...
Maria Lake?
WTF? That's gotta get confusing!
So we packed and we left, fulfilling an odd synchronicity of minor
events.
I'm a self-described "camping bigot": when I camp, I like to camp.
Parking in a flat field with 200 other people and pitching a tent next
to the minivan is to camping what Twinkies are to actual food. My
spouse, bless her heart, can't figure me out in this regard. And the
closer she comes to my actual vision of camping, the crankier I get
(mainly because real camping is a pain in the ass, even if I prefer it
over the non-real kind).
Well, last October we took a little bed-and-breakfast excursion in
Monticello, to bask in the romantic glow of the nuclear plant. On our
way home we were in no hurry, and so I meandered out of town in the
wrong direction, just to delay the inevitable return to
kids-and-house. We drove along and the next thing we knew, there was a
sign for Lake Maria State Park. Never heard of it.
So we drove in and looked around. It was very nice! Thick woods, lots
of ponds, and secluded, distant campsites. One thing that looked
interesting were the "camper cabins": hardly more than bunk-booths
with a woodburning stove and a table, they still would have had any
voyageur weeping at the luxury. But they looked like fun, especially
with kids, where keeping the tent zipped is only slightly more
difficult than making sure the zipper actually stays working.
So from this little drive-by discovery, we went this weekend for our
first camping at LMSP.
Now, LMSP was still lovely. The campsites were still in deep,
beautiful forest, and it was still a very nice, almost-really-like
camping experience. However, one thing had been added to the mix since
last October, brought on by our absurd mount of local rainfall...
BUGS
Not just Minnesota-mosquito-weather bugs. Not just "wow-it's-buggy"
bugs. No, these were "Holy Christ what the $^@%! AAAAAAAAGGH!" bugs.
These bugs had me thinking of the troops who served in Viet Nam. They
probably had it worse. They were the only ones I could think of who
did.
The first 3/4-mile hike from the car to the campsite was the worst: I
was under- dressed and under-sprayed for the task. Add to the delight
that I took a wrong turn along the way (because I had bugs in my face
so bad I couldn't see where I was going), and I was about ready to go
home as soon as we arrived. Honest to god, if going home hadn't
involved walking back through the bugs, I'd've left right then. More
than once over our weekend I was strongly tempted to drive the family
car into the virgin campsite in order to avoid that walk.
There were three types of bugs, of increasingly difficulty of
detection. First there were the deerflies: easy to detect. I knew I
was up sh&@ creek when a cloud of them paced the car as we drove into
the parking lot. This is like pulling up to a bar and having a bunch
of guys in leather jackets surround your vehicle smacking blackjacks
in their palms. I stepped from the car, and the buzzing sound didn't
leave my ears for three days.
Next were the mosquitoes. They could have been worse: they could have
been LARGER. They could have been wearing leather jackets and smacking
blackjacks. They could hardly have been more plentiful. While the
deeflies took the hair, neck and ears, the mosquitoes took the limbs
and torso, and they teamed up on the face. As we slogged our
ridiculous supplies deep through the woods, we were followed by a
cloud of insects. This is not hyperbole, exaggeration or illustration:
there was literally a cloud of insects behind each of us as we walked.
Finally, of course, the tics. Indetectable by normal means, they have
to be rooted out with ultrasounds, MRI's, and cat-scans.... or by
waiting until you feel something like an extra toe growing out of the
back of your ear! Oddly although we feared them all weekend, we only
actually met two, neither of which managed to get a grip on anybody.
As a result of oall this our perception of the campsite went through
some changes. The scenic pond surrounded by raspberry bushes
transformed before our eyes into into BIG MOSQUITO FACTORY and BIG
MOSQUITO TRACT HOUSING as soon as we arrived, with us becoming the BIG
MOSQUITO TREAT.
But we adapted. The kids learned to close the screen door behind them
(even if they never did learn to simply stop going in-and-out so
much). We learned the value of covering every inch of flesh with 9.5%
DEET. And we all enjoyed standing in the smoke from the wood fire,
even if we couldn't breathe or see.
My big discovery, however, was the towel-over-the-head. Where I had
walked bareheaded, in shorts and a tank top down the path the first
night, by the time we left I was wearing sweatpants, sweatshirt, and a
beach towel over my head. If somebody told me that the hijab had been
invented, not to oppress women and treat them like property, but to
free them from incessant clouds of stinging insects, I'd happly buy
two just for myself. Was I sweating in all these clothes? Was I
uncomfortable under a beachtowel? Did I look like an idiot? I didn't
care. By the time we left I could walk with impugnity through the
thickest cloud of deerflies...
Saturday we abandoned the campsite for as long as we could, heading
out to blessedly-insect-free Pleasant Lake for an absolutely beautiful
day of doing nothing. The weather couldn't have been better. The
eye-candy was plentiful as Pleasant Lake is apparently the in-thing to
do for large numbers of corn-fed rural farm girls. The air was cool
and dry. And no bugs.
However, it was a learning experience. I learned, much to my chagrin,
that the leaves of a small tree are insufficient defense against
ultraviolet radiation. The UV rays had come ninety-three million miles
to meet me, and by god they weren't about to let a few meagre leaves
stop them only a few feet from their goal. Nosiree Bob!
The result is, I'm baked. Whoa am I baked. I haven't lobstered like
this in years. Usually (well, sometimes) I have the sense to put on
sunblock. A couple weeks ago my wife said "Put on some sunblock", but
did I? No.
Apparently (and quite rightly) she's given up on trying to save me
from my own foolishness. So sunblock never even crossed my mind on
Saturday. I never thought of it once. I placed our blankets in the
shade of a small tree, and I moved them around to stay in the shade as
the afternoon progressed. And it never occurred to me that days and
days of working at a keyboard in the basement of my house probably
hadn't prepared me for hard solar radiation, even if it was filtered
by 2 mm of chlorophyll and cellulose.
So not only was sleeping last night quite, um, interesting, but
hoo-boy did I have fun carrying out our camping gear this morning,
with a roasted red sunburn. It's a small mercy that I can't see the
back of my own neck, because if I did I'd probably faint dead away.
So anyway, we did eventually get home, although the drive was brutal.
I couldn't sit back against the seat, and I had to hold the shoulder
strap away from myself with one hand because the chafing was insane.
And I had to drive because the alternative was to sit in the passenger
seat... in the sun and I was having none of that.
We'll go back to Lake Maria sometime, I think. But maybe we'll go
winter camping: stoke up the wood stove, make a few snowmen, and revel
in the beauties of nature... a nature with no bugs...
[1]Last
Posted by Albatross at July 14, 2002 12:00 AM