Bit of Ivory

So. Camping. Usually a very pleasant experience, all things considered. Just keep your eye out for mosquitos and the occasional horsefly, and bond with nature. That was what I was expecting. I packed my four paperback British editions of HP and OotP, and planned on working on my panel presentation for Nimbus, when my aunt wasn’t teaching us how to knit. Good food, good company, all the s’mores you can eat. Come home smelling like smoke, relaxed and refreshed. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

The first indication of something amiss came when we got off the freeway after a 2 1/2 hour drive. There were these little black specs on the road, and they moved. Actually, “little” is a misnomer. They were actually rather big. And the closer we got to the campsite, the more of them they were. As the cars came closer, they hopped. It became very obvious what they were: Mormon crickets.

Mormon crickets aren’t really crickets at all, they’re more closely related to grasshoppers. But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that they are about 2 1/2 inches long, and that there were thousands of them. You couldn’t take a step without having one nearby. There were probably about 2 crickets per square foot by the time we got up there. I tried to be brave. I thought I was handling it well– until it came time to go into the tent to blow up our air mattresses. Because they were all over it– all over the top, all over the windows, inside the screen we’d put up on our awning. I lost it. After I finally got in the tent, I had to close my eyes and ignore the scuttling all over it. I ended up curling up in fetal position and sobbing when I realized I’d have to leave the tent to go to dinner. My sister Lisa was in a similar condition, although not quite as bad. Neither of us are Gryffindors, obviously. Laura, who is a Gryffindor, was much better off than either of us, and was even able to help mom (who must be a Gryffindor as well) brush the crickets off. None of us slept very well, though. It’s difficult when there are crickets hopping into the side of your tent, or losing their footing and scuttling down the sides as they fall.

We left early.

But we did manage to get the knitting lessons before we left. As of right now we’re just practicing, but I’m sure we’ll be up to elf-hats any time now. Can’t wait till I’m good enough to attempt a Ravenclaw scarf. My crocheted one is lovely, but a knit one would be ever so much more authentic, you know?

It wasn’t easy, though, what with crickets falling out of the tress we were sitting under.

Note to self: Never go camping in central Utah during a drought year again.