Bugs are an unfortunate aspect of camping. Mosquitoes, ants, biting flies and ticks are inconvenient at best, and at their worst, they can absolutely ruin an otherwise pleasant trip. We were surprised to find a virtual absence of mosquitoes and flies, but I don't remember ever seeing so many ticks. We first noticed the nefarious bloodsucker after waking up from our nap on the first day of the trip. There were several ticks stuck to the outside of the tent. Darin is creeped out by ticks, so he immediately went outside and doused himself in bug repellent. Unfortunately for him, we were using mosquito repellent, which had almost no impact on the ticks. Either that, or they were more hungry than repelled by our bug juice.After Darin realized that the ticks weren't impacted by the Off, he went into obsessive-compulsive mode, visually inspecting himself for the parasites almost non-stop. In all honesty, Greg and I checked ourselves periodically too, but nowhere nearly as obsessively as Darin did.
Hint to inexperienced downriver paddlers: Make sure to pack plenty of bug juice. There is little that can ruin an otherwise awesome trip like an insect infestation.
Over the course of our trip, we picked dozens of ticks off of ourselves every day. But aside from this, the trip was relatively bug-free.
Tune in for the next episode... "Cab-Forward Design"
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