Unwanted Guests

Today 135.4 Total 4329.2
During all the nights I've spent stealth camping I've had quite a few nocturnal visitors. The soft foot fall of deer, the odourous scent of skunks, the scratching and sniffing of coyotes and the scrambling and gnawing of a weasel. Last night was the worst sound in the world to wake up to. BzzzzZZZZzzzzz.....zzzzzZZZZZZZZ. I was now wide awake. Eyes wide open. A futile gesture in the near pitch black of the hammock.

After the disastrous supper of the evening before I had thought I would pedal just out of town to Sandbar Lake. Both maps I have showed Sandbar as being right off of Hwy 17. It wasn't. I came to this conclusion after pedalling for twenty km in a light drizzle with the light failing. The shoulders of the road had reach near Manitoba proportions, so with all the semi traffic I was bailing off the road every 15 min or so. I gamely put my head down and worked as hard as I could to get... well anywhere. I finally happened upon one of those day use picnic sites and decided that was a great place for me to spend the night. The mosquitoes concurred. Rarely have I been so eagerly welcomed. I have never seen mosquitoes so bad. When I first got to camp I had thrown on my cycling leggings and my black cycling jacket with the intentions of changing afterwards.
Now I was under the assumption that I had to deal with rain or mosquitoes. These guys didn't get the memo. Not only was the rain drenching everything I owned but the mosquitoes had me dancing around like I was being electrocuted. I usually change, wash, brush my teeth, etc. By the time the hammock was set it was forget about it. I dove in fully clothed and fully dressed for cycling. After killing (mutilating) the four mosquito that had made it in with me I passed out.

It was 1:30 in the morning when that horrid sound awoke me. One of the problem with my hammock is when I roll over in my sleep the entryway gaps wide open. By the time I woke up about ten of the vicious little vampires had got in. After another brutal killing spree I had eliminated all the little beasties.
Now cycle clothing is designed for cycling alone. The elastic is very tight which is fine when you're in constant motion but when your laying still it become very painful. I tried to talk myself into going back to sleep but the four pressure points on my legs made me finally realize I was going to have to get changed. So with military precision and a small whimper I threw myself out of my hammock. I raced to my bike, grabbed my sleeping stuff, adjusted the tarp, (I was up and it was still pouring rain) and dove back into the hammock. So now I was back in the hammock trying to change because I was not offering up my body as the midnight buffet to that angry swarm outside. Pealing off wet spandex while laying down, swing three feet in the air, in total darkness is a feat the Houdini himself would have been proud off.