Jultember: ruined riparian relaxation...

we decided to celebrate the end of the week yesterday by spending a bit of time in one of the many riverside parks we are fortunate enough to have access to here in Montreal. so we each packed a small bag of necessary items, and off we went.

his bag contained a sketchbook and an assortment of colored pencils and pens, as he planned to make an art exercise out of the trip. meanwhile, i had grabbed the first in-progress knitting project i could find, along with my camera and a book of assorted puzzles. he wanted a challenge as an artist, while i wanted to relax extra-hard.

it was clear that this trip was going to be a disaster from the moment we got into the car.

the skies began to darken ominously, and it looked like something out of a horror movie when we arrived at our destination a short while later. there were exactly two other vehicles in the parking lot, meaning that everyone else had gotten the hint and taken off. at least, that is what we assumed at this point. still, we thought, it might not be too bad if we stuck close to the car so that we could get back in when it began to rain.

we were right on the river's edge and i was busy trying to convince my (still malfunctioning) lens to focus on the scene across the way.

then it hit me... literally. then another one. and another one.

one by one, my body was being pelted by flying bugs. i looked up to realize that i was in the midst of a massive, dense swarm of flying things.

i had to make a concerted effort to hang on to my camera as i sprinted the short distance back to the car. he was also making the same discovery at the same time, and it was beyond comical to see the two of us fumbling to get back into our vehicle. there was a couple parked a short distance from us, and they were dying laughing at the spectacle. i do not blame them one bit because i would have been falling over laughing if i saw a scene like that one.

worst part was, quite a few of the bugs had snuck into the car during the brief time when the doors were open, so there we were trying to get them out without letting even more of them in.

it... was... insane!

no exaggeration, it looked like something out of a movie about killer bugs. he started listing all the movies it reminded him of—as he is the master of such things—in between laughing his butt off. meanwhile, i was having a minor panic attack.

i make regular passing references to my being allergic to just about everything, and that really is no joke. most of those things would end in a fever and lots of scratching for a day or two. however, there is a short list of things that i avoid like the proverbial plague—because i do not want to risk ending up in the emergency room—and venomous creatures are on that short list.

i had no idea what those bugs were, but the warning signal inside my head was going off on full blast. it took a couple-few minutes of deep-breathing for my heart to stop pounding like crazy. and he... he was still laughing extra-hard.

this is when i remembered the camera in my hand. each of those tiny black specks is an airborne bug, and the whole area around us looked the same way.

i am (still) not sure what kind of insect it was, but my best guess so far is something related to a stonefly. that would make sense, as stoneflies are usually found near fresh-water, and we were standing on the edge Montreal, which is a small island in the middle of the St. Lawrence River.

i am not sure what prompted this swarming behavior, but we did notice a lot of smaller insects in between the maybe-stoneflies all over our car. see the little one at the top there?

we guessed that those little guys were probably their own youths [random aside: i feel a strong need to re-watch "My Cousin Vinny" every time i use that word], and that the swarm was part of some sort of seasonal reproductive behavior. either that... or the little ones were lunch!

whatever the reason, they were EVERYWHERE as far as the eye could see, and the sight of all of those bugs set off the "bugs crawling all over me" feeling that tends to pop up when my allergies are particularly bad. it was magical.

it began to rain.. and they just continued to swarm. we had hoped that the rain would scare them away so that we might be able to resume our ruined riparian relaxation.

nope!

it continued to rain... and they continued to swarm.

this is when we gave up and drove off... lowering the windows every now and then to dislodge the hitchhikers clinging to the car, like this lot.

it is a day later, and i am still expecting to see a few stowaways flying around our place, the very thought of which gets that "bugs crawling all over me" feeling going again. good times.

we did manage to salvage something enjoyable out of the trip, but i will save that bit for tomorrow.