Mississippi Monsters 10-4

Last night I was on the phone with my friend and Larry started going nuts…he was killing those little tiny sugar ants. We had been breached! We were out of ant spray by now and just had flying insect killer, any insecticide in a storm I say. Larry went outside with the spray and a flashlight to find the source. He was out there for awhile…on the trailer, under the trailer. He came back in looking like he had been through quite the ordeal. He told me that I don’t even want to know about all the spiders and insects that come out after dark! Freaked him out AND the trailer walls looked like they were moving there were so many ants all over it…who needs marijuana when you have insects in Mississippi! We went to bed hoping he got them, but we didn’t really believe they would be all gone by morning. They were just marching over all the ant barrier poison Larry had put around everything when we had first got here.

We wanted an early start because we were planning on going about 200 miles and on a road that wasn’t freeway speeds. I knew we were in trouble when I saw an ant crawling up Larry’s ribs in bed. Larry went down stairs and said a few potty words, there were troops of ants advancing on many fronts. So we got busy attacking back and getting ready to hit the road and retreat! Larry was back outside hosing off the trailer in hopes of getting rid of as many invaders as he could.

We hit the road at 8:45. About 13 miles down the road we made a stop at the grocery store for staples and a big can of ant spray. It has now been almost 24 hours since the first assault and we are still battling the pests! I suspect it’ll be a couple days before we are purged of them all.

So anyway, we headed west on I-20 through Jackson and picked up the Natchez Trace Parkway heading southwest. A very beautiful drive. Hardly anyone was on it, there are no towns to go through and just miles and miles of beautiful, tall trees. We made a couple of stretch stops. We met a lovely couple from Tennessee. They lived near the Smokey Mountains which we had been through less than a month ago. We were comparing notes. They had traveled to California, Oregon and Nevada several years ago. We all agreed that there were many places in Oregon that looked like Tennessee. Larry said if someone picked us up in Oregon and dropped us in Tennessee we wouldn’t know the difference and I said, yeah until someone spoke to you! They laughed at that, because they had to agree! The people talk funny back here and they think we talk too fast.

We got ourselves into the Natchez State Park campground at 1:45. We traveled 197 miles. This is another lovely campground. We have water and electricity and the pads are paved AND are actually level. The garbage cans are suspended above the ground on poles to discourage the raccoons. The Ranger said it worked for awhile, but the little bandits have figured it out.

There are what appear to be free floating leaves frozen between trees. Looks like a lovely mobile, until you realize they are suspended in the biggest, freaking spider webs I have ever seen!!! These webs are at least six feet across! It was too dim to get a picture or I would have proof for all you doubters out there! The spiders have very long striped legs with bodies about the size of nickels. From tip of front leg to tip of back leg they would cover the palm of my hand…GROSS! So we decided we weren’t going to take the nature trail because we would need a machete to chop through the spider webs and a gun! Some of the strands looked as big as five pound test fishing line.

We were in a heated discussion about the size of the spiders when I noticed something in the grass moving and it was a real, LIVE armadillo. Our first live one! He didn’t seem to care that he was being watched so Larry ran back to the trailer to get the camera. It was getting dark so these pictures aren’t very good, but I was so excited to finally see a breathing, digging, and scuffling armadillo that I took pictures for proof. It was very cute and stood up on its hind legs once to sniff the air. They say that so many get killed on the roads because instead of standing still and letting the cars go over them, that they jump straight up when they get scared and they hit the under carriages of the cars and are killed! They need a little evolutionary help!

As I was walking up to the trailer door, I looked back and JUST where I had walked was one of those big spiders traveling across about 20 feet of open space on his invisible web. I am leaving this trailer tomorrow with a sword!