utenzi

This is a follow up to yesterday's post about the hike in Harris Lake Park. What can I say? These pictures say it all. The sandflea bites itch like crazy. I read online that it hurts when the buggers bite you but I didn't even notice. The biting was going on between 8:30am when we started hiking and 11am when we finished the hike and brushed off the fleas before getting in the car. Cheryl was bothered by the bites immediately but I didn't feel any itching until around 3pm, hours after I'd gotten home. I might have started late on the itching thing but I'm making up for it with longevity. Damn but these things itch. I'm typing this at almost 11:30pm on Tuesday, two and a half days after getting bitten and the bites are still horribly itchy. And that's with lots of 2% creme on the bites and antihistamine tablets in me. Evil, nasty sandfleas! But even with all that, I'd still love to do that hike again. The next time I go there I'll wear something that...

I was hiking yesterday at Harris Lake Park. A number of times I was walking along the lake shore, on sand, or in lake weeds at the water's edge. Apparently that was a very bad idea. Even though I had sprayed my legs with insect repellent just before commencing the hike, by the time I had finished the hike I was infested. Sand fleas . Just the girls, mind you. Like with mosquitoes, only the female sand fleas bite you and suck out your blood. They need the serum proteins in blood for laying eggs. And there's going to be a lot of new eggs 'cause I had the little suckers all over my ankles and lower legs. By the way, that's another picture of the Harris Nuclear Plant's cooling tower. Yesterday the sand flea bites didn't bother me all that much, at least not until around 11pm. But today? Today is bad. My legs are itching constantly. Damn crustaceans! (sand fleas aren't really fleas at all, how odd) I can't wait to get home from work so that I can ice down t...