Hightailing It Out of Mosquitoville

Northwoods Journal

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

The dogs were kind enough to let us sleep in but unfortunately we were shaken awake by the logging trucks rumbling past at 7:30 a.m.  No drinking coffee on the porch this morning, the mosquitoes have come out of the woodwork – or more likely, the swampy area just beyond our fire pit – and were swarming everywhere!  It wasn’t a whole lot better inside, thanks to several holes in the screen on the door.

I wanted to have a slow morning but Mark had things he wanted to get done outside before we left, such as mow the yard.  It didn’t really need it, but he figured it would be bad in a couple week’s time.  I showered (Mark says I have a strange obsession with cleanliness) but then later I had to coat myself in Off! when I stepped outside, so it seemed to defeat the purpose just a bit.  The mosquitoes were swarming so bad around the front door and porch that I sprayed Off! all over trying to deter them somewhat.

Packing up took hours – literally.  Mounds of dirty laundry, sheets that needed to be changed.  I decided to be brave and remove the electric blanket from the bed. 🙂  I hope we don’t need it next trip!  We bought a lot more garage sale treasures than I thought.  The small bedroom was pretty much jam-packed, so that took a long time to sort through, organize and pack up.  We definitely need to haul the trailer back!

Late morning we did a quick run into town for tie-down rope, bungee cords and a new chain and lock for the canoe.  When we got back, I took the dogs for a quick walk back to Sportsmens while Mark worked on loading things up.  I didn’t go all the way back to the lake.  I could hear the whine of the logging equipment and I had seen enough of that devastation this weekend, thank you very much.  We saw a green and yellow striped snake and that was about it for the wildlife.

We ate a bite of lunch before resuming our packing.  Mark had to spray mosquito repellent inside the FJ, trying to keep the skeeters away while we loaded up.  Neither one of us wanted to be swatting at the pesky buggers all the way home!  Tying everything down on the trailer took forever and a day!  At least while we were loading up we saw the county trucks going by and by time we left they were grading some of the rougher spots out of our road.

We drove into dark clouds going south on M33 and by time we hit I75 it was raining.  Mark had wrapped our garage sale find bookcase/cabinet in a blanket but all I could think was that our $8 treasure (costing us more in gas to haul it home on the trailer!) was going to get ruined in the weather.  It rained off and on our whole way home.

We are hoping to get up again for a short weekend trip in June.  My mother-in-law is coming for a visit, so we won’t have a chance for a longer trip.  Our next big trip will be for the 4th of July and then maybe not at all in August due to the 10-day vacation we are taking to Vermont to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.

I didn’t even touch my camera today, so I will leave you with a few images I shot over the weekend and didn’t use in other posts. 🙂

Indigo bunting

Purple finch

American goldfinch

White-breasted nuthatch