Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Camping = Never EVER Again

It seems like everyone has blogs now. So what the hell? I want one too. Funny things happen to me especially now that I'm living in KY so I figured I'd share. This story started out funny, but got progressively worse.


This past weekend, Howard and I decided to go camping since it was going to be so nice. We headed down to Land Between the Lakes Saturday morning with Jack in tow. We got to our most favorite spot because it's secluded, on the lake and we can bring the car down and listen to the radio. There were people already there. I was NOT happy. But Howard went and talked to them and they said they were only fishing and would leave in a couple of hours. Howard told them he was going to set up a tent to claim the spot and we would come back later. So we went down the road a ways and waited. They left in 15 minutes!


So we had a funtastic time listening to the NFL draft on Sirius, drinking beer, cooking out, etc. We went to bed around 9:30/10 pm and all was well. Until Jack woke up about 2 am and started growling at something snapping branches and rustling leaves in the woods. I tried for 45 minutes unsuccessfully to get him to go back to sleep but he wanted to investigate. I also figured out that I was sleeping on a hill with rocks (something I was a little too drunk to notice when we went to bed) and figured I would go sleep in the car for a bit. So I let Jack out and he ran off into the woods barking. I was arranging a bed on the passenger seat of Howard's car when Jack came sprinting towards me and literally dove into the car. So I did the same thinking a mountain lion was about to attack. I slammed the car door and waited. I didn't hear anything but about 20 seconds later, I smelled it. A skunk. At least Jack somehow knew that he should get away from it before we were both sprayed.


So I tried to sleep for the next 3 hours and pretty much had no luck. At about 6 am, I got up to let Jack out and walk around a bit. When I came back to get in the car, there were 3 huge spiders on my pillow. Somehow, I didn't scream and I got them off the pillow and got back in the car. However, every 2 seconds I looked at the pillow because I was certain the spiders were back. I gave up on sleep at this point and started playing on Facebook on my phone to keep me occupied. At some point I got back in the tent and slept for about an hour. I couldn't wait to get home and showered.


So we finally left about 8:30 and we were going to Miss Scarlett's for breakfast. I looked down and noticed a tick on my shirt and I panicked. I started screaming at Howard to get it off. He screamed back he couldn't because he was driving. Right, I guess that's a little more important than a tick. I couldn't pick it off with my fingers so I found a scrap of paper and got it. This took about 5 minutes though and the whole time I was freaking out.


Fast forward to later that night when I realized Jack had about 10 on him. I had absolutely no problem taking them off Jack though because he's like my child. He hated me for it though. I also noticed at this point that I had a ton of bug bites even though I sprayed myself with OFF. Oh well, I'm used to those. So Monday afternoon while driving, I felt one of my bug bites oozing. I thought it was strange because I hadn't scratched at it but I couldn't look at it because I was wearing a sweatshirt. Then later on, I felt one on my lower back doing the same thing so I asked Itchie (yes, I work with a guy named Itchie) to look at it and he said it was just bleeding. I left it at that.


This morning when I got up from bed, I looked down at one bite on my leg and saw the scab coming off so I picked it out and yeah, it was a tick. Apparently, my 25 bug bites I had were all TICKS. Those bug bites that were oozing were actually ticks falling off from being so full of my blood. How can one be so stupid and not realize this? I don't know. I always thought they liked being in hair so I checked my head a ton but never thought to examine my bug bites any closer. So I found like 6 more this morning and there are some I can't see or get to. Howard's out of town until tomorrow night and I'm not letting Itchie anywhere near the places these things are hiding so I get to go to the doctor this afternoon and let her pull these tiny little bastards off me. JOY!


So Leslie, ready to go camping this weekend?

5 comments:

  1. HOLY CRAP! THAT IS A NIGHTMARE! I would have freaked out and ran away screaming!

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  2. Dude. No wonder you're not going camping anytime soon. I don't freakin' blame you. On the positive side, at least y'all had good weather. Maybe fall would be a better time to go...with less ticks?

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  3. you are too funny Dane....welcome to blogging!! :)

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  4. girl you are BRAVE to survive the camping after those spiders on your pillow! That would have been the end of the trip for me! Ticks are the worst :(

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  5. that's why we go camping at the KOA mini log cabins...come on now dana....btw i bet the tics fell off because they were wasted off your beer blood :)

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