Saturday, September 28, 2013
Wow! What a day, and not in a good way. It was one of those days, you know the ones that you hear travelers tell when reminiscing about the worst-of-times while traveling. We woke up and went to the local store to pick up some supplies before we needed to leave our absolutely beautiful location near Asheville. We prepped the rig and started to pull our slides in when stinkbugs just started to pour in our living room, by the thousands. Panicked by seeing the stupid mistake we had made a fellow camper came running over and told us to pump the slides first before pulling them all the way in because it is stinkbug mating season, they like the rubber slide of the tracks. Too late! We had a living room full of the little stinky creepies. We frantically tried to catch them and shoo them outdoors. As check out was approaching we needed to leave our site so off I drove with a swarm of bugs in the truck cruising down mountain roads. Unreal! Unfortunately for you, our backseat riders, we went into panic mode and did not get any pictures, but let me paint one for your minds eye. Picture a waterfall wall of cockroaches descending next to your sofa, then continue this water fall effect for about ten seconds, now multiply that by 2 sides and 2 slides. That’s a shit ton of smelly let me tell you. I was driving through an especially touristy mountain town when I stopped at a light and looked over at the car next to me. An older lady was looking at me when two bugs landed on my face, I saw her look up at our rigs nice white ceiling. She suddenly had a look of horror on her face because she noticed all the black bugs swarming/mating above my head. I just smiled and thought to myself sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Today I lost, but that’s OK because there is always tomorrow. Until there is not and then yesterday doesn’t matter much.
After some intense driving down mountain roads swatting at bugs flying all over the bus I started to smell something burning! I was hoping that somehow the swarm had spontaneously combusted. But, oh no the brakes are smoking. I walkie-talkied Kindy who was following closely and bug free to check if I was on fire. She said she smelled something and thought it was coming from me. We pulled over and let things cool off for a bit. Do you know what that gear labeled 1, 2 , or 3 are for on you car. Well know I do! The rest of the ride was almost uneventful except for a detour that took us 1 1/2 hours out of our way down windy little mountain roads. After about the third detour that my GPS was taking me on I finally figured it out that the GPS was set to scenic driving. Another lesson learned. Upon our final arrival at our little spot on the river we spent the first few hours after setup squashing bugs. Hundreds of them! Needless to say we are going to both sleep well tonight that is until the rest of the little stinkers land on our face. It’s just been one of those kind of days!
In short Lesson One: Always check your slides before pulling the outside inside.
Lesson Two: Always downshift to avoid burning up your brakes on long steep grade descends.
Lesson Three: When driving a large RV turn off the GPS scenic drive feature.
If you want more information and pictures of these pests check out this link Stink Bugs
Comments
2 responses to “The Great Plague”
Wow! What an adventure! Sounds like the mosquito hotel we slept in on the Osqugotshi River when
Angie had a fever and the river flowed through our lean-to on a very hot sweaty night when the river rose up 2 feet in several hours!
Yeah, it was not fun cleaning all the little critters out. In fact we went out and bought an electric leaf blower to clean our slides from here on out. The smell of stink is finally subsiding now, so we are once again happy campers.