Horsefly Heaven

When we pulled into Graham’s Cave State Park yesterday, I remarked to the camp host how empty the place was.  His excuse was the park has no swimming.  He lied.  The truth is many small children have been hauled off to the cave by horseflies the size of F-18s.   They have an arrangement with the troll that lives there to provide fresh meat.  The troll, in turn, who is a leather smith, provides new bridles and saddles for the peepers that ride them.

Now if all that sounds a bit bazaar, let me explain.  We tried to take a walk down to the cave last evening.  We were attacked by huge horseflies and other nondescript bugs.  We had to make a hasty retreat back to the MH while being buzzed and zoomed by these huge pests.

Once inside the MH, a squadron of kamikaze horseflies bombarded the windows in an attempt to break through for the whole regiment.  The sound was something like hail hitting the glass.  I went for the hornet spray just in case there was a breakthrough.

As darkness fell, the aerial attack ceased.  Peepers, that must be the size of your hand, took over with an attempt to use loud acoustics to force us out into the open.  The sound was deafening.  Fortunately, I am nearly deaf so the tactic had no effect on me.  Darlie, however, was ready to open the door to investigate the noise.  Though I couldn’t hear them, I knew full well what they were attempting.  I hollered, “NOOOOOOO!”  as she reached for the door handle.  Had she opened the door hordes of horseflies would have rushed in and the troll would have had some tough steaks for dinner.  

I convinced her the best tactic was to turn out the lights and go to bed.  Don’t let them know their psychological attack was working.  Let them think we are so secure in the MH that we are going to sleep.  We laid awake listening to things crawling around on the metal roof.  The peepers kept up their acoustic attack.  With pillows over our heads, we finally drifted off to sleep.