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Remember, we mentioned bug season? Back when our only worry was
mud? You thought we were kidding, didnt you. Ha, not so much kiddies,
not so much. Our first two ventures in this, the season of small flying
biting stinging clinging chomping lethal critters have netted us results
even we felt were heretofore unheard of. A walk through the woods
netted us six ticks, two spiders, a bullseye rash, and a bug in someones
underwear. That was nothing. Trust us. So the car became the
deathmobile, infested with lyme disease carrying little monsters that
refused to die. Small. Potatos.
Today we experienced venture two.
Picture this.
Venture two starts off midafternoon, and is bug free. It's a lovely day in
the mountains. The air. The view. The green. The flowers. So scenic.
So lovely. And as the shadows lengthen and the air turns that intense
blue you only get at dusk in the summer, you find your first location,
joyously, rapturously climb out of the car, stretch your limbs into the
warm, purple summer air, take a deep breath and....commence choking
to death on the three dozen bugs you have unexpectedly inhaled. The
happy steps to the location entrance became a blind headlong rush as
various combinations of blackfly (also known as the new hampshire
state bird) and midge commence what feels like the devouring of your
eyelids, causing instant swelling that reduces useable vision to mere
slits.
Undaunted you continue on. You are an explorer! You are not going to
let mere bugs stand in your way.
Except that they are, in fact, standing in your way. Or more properly,
they are SWARMING in your way. Billions of them, between you and
every single possible means of entry. You try to go through them, only
to be beaten back as the little wee things fill your nose and ears. You
attempt to go around them, skirting piles of rubble and clambering over
mounds of brush, only to find that the blood, now freely running from
your ears, which have now become a blackfly snackbar, has attracted
hundreds of enthusiastic mosquitos, all honing in on YOU.
This is not good. There are so many of them you fear you may become
airborn should they all get hold of you at once.
You give the location one more feeble try and then flee, clouds of
midges, knats, blackflies,and mosquitos in hot pursuit. You dive for the
sanctuary of the car only to find that you've left the window open and
the little assholes are lying in wait for you.
80 mph on the highway with the windows open blows most of them out,
and you lick your wounds, clean off the blood and realize you've just
driven by location two.
You stop. You think about it. Do you really want to go back out there?
Do you REALLY? But the locations really sweet, and it looks to give you
not one but two buildings to explore. But it's bug hell out there.
But you are an explorer. You decide to come back another time, after
having had a dip in deep woods OFF, but then THE VOICE chimes in.
You know THE VOICE. The one that reminds you that locations
disappear with wild...well...with wild abandon. You can't count on the
place even being here next time you come by. You owe it to yourself to
check it out. In fact, you have an OBLIGATION to check it out. Just do it
quickly. You can always try again another time with bug spray, but you
can't just pass it by this time.
You nod. You're ready. You can do it.
Out you go, into the buzzing, humming, peeping, zooming world. You
valiantly and bravely ignore the bugs. You roam. You poke. You
photograph. You open doors, you climb stairs, you smell that wonderful
abandoned smell. You finally decided you've lost too much light to
continue, still adamantly refusing to acknowledge the fact that your
eyelids have now been eaten off and you will never close your eyes
again.
You walk steadily back to the car. You will not give the little bastards the
satisfaction of seeing you run.
You calmly load your camera into the back seat, relieve your pockets of
all flashlights and assorted gear, unhurriedly pull up your pantlegs and
pick off the sixteen ticks that are traveling up your leg. You open a new
bottle of water and spray it violently in your own face, then dump the
rest over your head, nodding in satisfaction as a multitude of small
winged things cascade off you in a black speckled wash. Upon finally
closing the doors and windows on nature once and for all, you dig
around, find an old sock, soak it down and wash as much of the blood
and venom off you as you can. You then spend the next half hour
systematically killing every single biting, stinging, leeching, clinging,
virus carrying passenger stowed away in your car.
You realize that while you were starving at the beginning of this outing,
you are now no longer hungry. There is a good reason for this. You've
eaten at least three pounds of bugs.
But don't worry. They're low in fat, high in protein, wont raise your
cholesteral, and we know for an absolute fact that you can eat a june
bug with absolutely no ill effects.
It'll save a shitload in munchie bills.
subtitle: when it's mud no more.
You never really think about it. It's just how it is around here. Artic cold in the winter, mad heat in the summer, rain when
you least want it, high fire warnings right about the time you wanted to set that bonfire in the....wait.
And that other thing you never think about, come March-ish.
Mud.
It's just there. You just walk in it. But exploring in it is another matter entirely. Because in certain situations that mud is
made up of much weirder ingredients than simply dirt and water. And these ingredients can give you a substance with
the consistancy of say....glue. Or wet cement. Or god help you quicksand. Sometimes you're just in a situation where
the last thing in the world you want is to suddenly be slimed up to your eyebrows in some kind of muck. It's easy for
people like security and the police to catch you when you're no longer a human being on foot, but are a creature trying
to dogpaddle through a swamp. And you just dont see it coming. You're just walking, thinking how nice it is out, you
don't even need a coat, it's got to be at LEAST 45. Balmy. You're cruising around the old police station, and a
convenient window shows its tantalizing face. You climb up onto that convenient pile of debris and....MUD. But not just
any mud. This mud has formed when melting snow meets several dusts made up of concrete, plaster and wood,
generously mixed with loose sand. You step on this and you hear a noise.
That noise is
*squelch*
"oh shit" you say. "mud"
Then you notice you're rapidly sinking and are up to your knees in the stuff.
"quicksand!" you yell to your companions, who are laughing uproariously as you sink up to your ass.
"shut up!" you yell. "it's not fucking funny i'm stuck!"
They laugh. They would be happy to help you, but they cannot because they are laughing much too hard. You're on
your own. And eventually you do manage to schlooooooook yourself out of the stuff, looking now as if you've gone
wading in a cement mixture. You feel like it, too, when the stuff begins to dry and you can no longer bend your knees. It
doesn't just brush off, either.
Then of course there's the organic mud.
This is the stuff you're just blind to, because you're used to it. It's nothing much but some dirt and melting dog poop.
Spring in new england. Treacherous damn substance. You're walking along on your way to the bunkers with a newbie.
All is normal, the birds are singing, the woods are beginning to smell fresh and alive as they thaw. It's so pleasant you
just ignore that telltale fragrance of moldering dirt and poo. And then, as you're walking, you hear it:
*gloop*
"What the hell was that?"
You stop, looking around for the source of the gloop.
"what was what?" ask your deaf companions.
"something just glooped."
"glooped?"
*gloop*
"there! did you hear it?!"
"yeah, it's nothing. just water or something. lets' go."
Never NEVER ignore the gloop. Because you don't know it but you're walking right into it. A few steps down the road
and you pick a foot up, put the foot down, and it happens.
*gloop*
"there's that.....aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhh*skidslipmooshsquelch*"
*gloop*
You're on your ass. You can't see the lower half of your body because it is now in a bog. Just a day ago this was solid
ground, but it is now a bog and you are now in it. You can't get up because every time you put a hand down it glooches
into the mud. It's slippery. It's poopy. Pine needles are sogging their way into your drawers. Your camera is out of action
for at least a week because your'e sending that baby out for cleaning. Let them wonder why it has liquified doggie
doodoo in it. Meanwhile you have to get out of the mud. And once again your companions, having taken their cue from
your spectacular wipeout, are standing well back out of gloops way, and laughing at you.
Great.
And you know damn well that once you get out, no matter how wet and gross you are, there is no going back. You're still
going to have to go into those bunkers.
"quiet now" they say.
*squelch* you say with every single step, as you leave a trail of muddied footprints behind you.
"quiet" they say again.
"shut the fuck up"
you say.
Then there's the time youre out cavorting around the ruins of a leftover sanitorium. There's no gloop here. NO warning
whatsoever. Your companion simply sinks three feet without a sound, and stands there oozing at you. You stare back at
him, secretly glad it's not you.
Of course none of this takes into account what happens when you finally get used to the mud, and it becomes, with one
of those famous changes of new england weather, mud no longer.
No, now that you've remembered how to walk on it, the damn stuff becomes ice. Ruts, to be perfectly accurate. Ruts that
pitch you headlong onto your face because you stepped on them expecting them to give and they, in fact, had no
intention of doing so.
Because they're ice. You could run a train on this stuff and it wouldnt give way. Yep. You're down.
It freezes up in weird places too, and it's worse with that deceptive, lovely, cleansing "dusting" you just had. Oh that
sweet little half inch of snow that prettily and maliciously HIDES the frozen mud. You're walking, you're walking, you're
walking, the earth has some give under your feet, your'e feeling pretty sure footed, and then
*schwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa*
Once again you are on your ass. You're not sure how you got there, but you can't even think about getting up, because
your camera is lodged somewhere between your ribs and your throat. If you move you're sure you'll uncap a severed
artery and bleed to death right there.
Of course your companions are rushing to your aid.
Right.
We all know what they are doing.
And then it totally freezes up and snows again.
The mud is gone and you've totally forgotten what perils hide under the snow.
Sheets of plexiglass completely obscured that send you flying, feet in air, ass on ground, camera in snow bank.
Fuck.
And lets dont forget ice where you least expect it. Like the kitchen of an asylum. Ok, YES there's a big gaping cave in a
mere four feet away, but you're still not expecting ice in the kitchen! Ice just doesn't belong in kitchens. Water, yes.
So you tip on through, come around a corner, hit that ice you thought was a puddle, one foot decides up the stairs
looks like a nice place to try, the other foot decides the way you came looks better, leaving you in a mad scrambling split
trying like hell to avoid impaling yourself on that big broken pipe or beheading yourself on a stainless steel counter
corner.
"ice!" you exclaim, while still fighting for balance.
"duh" your companion helpfully remarks.
Great.
Wait'll bug season.