-- Bugs Instead of Bears...

Paradise seems to always come with a price.  The flies around here are truly annoying.  They don’t bite like mosquitoes, but they hover around my head and land on my nose.  Even when I walk around the campsite, they seem to follow me.  It's as if I have my own entourage--my own little army of secret-service flies to shadow my every move. 

When I looked over at my mom, I noticed that she had her own crew.  My mom doesn’t like these flies any more than I do, but she said she would rather deal with bugs than bears--so she is tolerating them. 

My dad suggested a nature hike.  My mom didn’t want another episode of wheezing and coughing from the trail dust, so she opted to stay behind at camp.  I felt badly for her, so I posed for a photo to cheer her up.

After my dad and I left for our walk, my mom closed herself up in the Supervan and killed all of the flies with a bottle of Windex--don’t leave home without it. 

When we got back, my dad opened up the Supervan door and a fresh batch of flies entered my mom’s airspace.  The Windex was in one hand and a dish towel was in the other, as she sprayed and swatted the darn things.  She finally resorted to taking two food domes made from netting and concocted a goofy hat.

Not very attractive, but highly effective.

Besides my early-morning nature walk, my day was pretty low-key; mostly sleeping and fighting off flies.  I was so miserable, my mom made me wear her silly hat...    

The sunset was pretty cool...

Although we had no Internet or cell phone reception, we did have satellite--

I guess one out of three ain’t bad.