Bad Water Day (7/ 13)

This was bound to happen.

The early mornings were without a doubt going to break me down. I've been feeling so tired lately- it's just so hard to go to bed early, and I end up so mentally exhausted. It was hot again today, and after the rain, the bugs were out. All of this, mixed with uncooperative water turned me into a whining, teary mess.

I went out, planning on knocking everything out today- even the stuff that wasn't terribly dire. I like getting things done, but when I got to the site where I was going to do a measurement, nothing was working out.

The water was shallow, so I was going to wade because it must have been less than two feet deep. But I sunk farther and farther with every step, until the muck was threatening to remove my hip waters from my legs. Being alone and not really caring to drown, I abandoned the endeavor and figured that since I was there, I could try a river surveyor measurement anyway, maybe it was deeper across the ditch?

Nope. It was a foot deep the whole way across. So I couldn't do that measurement.

Moving on, I couldn't find the culvert where I was to do another flow measurement. I hacked the vegetation away and poked around, but didn't see it. Being tired and already in a foul mood, I abandoned that too.

By mid-morning, I was in a miserably grumpy mood, which was worsened by my crippling inability to do anything productive. I went to the next site where I completely unraveled.

I had done these measurements at this site before, so I figured it would be fine. Well it started out okay, with me inching down to the culvert as I tried to avoid the poison ivy and keep from losing all of my stuff. Then the biting gnats came out. They flocked to my arms and face, and each little bite really stung, for as little as those bugs are.

And then the yellowflies started chewing on me- not exaggerating- they bit me through my shirt, on my arms, my legs. The 28 seconds it took to get each of the three readings felt like an eternity. I was working on my last one, trying to brush flies off with one arm and keep the wading rod steady in the other when I saw it.

A fly, as big as my thumb, perched on my hip and looking up at me with it's huge, globular green eyes.


I screamed. They probably heard me from the visitors center.

And that was it. I couldn't get focused after that, I hit 'end section' and clawed my way back up to the road, completely giving up. By the time I was on my feet again, tears were running down my face and I was exhausted. I was totally defeated, it felt like the swamp and all of the bugs had a personal vendetta against me. I was sweaty, teary, and as soon as I had everything packed away (which I had to do around my cloudy vision) I crawled into the truck and sat there for a minute, crying it out and considering a phone call to my parents, my friends, my mentor, and maybe a hotel/resort in some remote place without flies.

With my tail between my legs, I came back to the office and began to pack up the truck for Prime Hook on Monday. Oh, today is miserable. I haven't done a thing, and my skin is starting to look like I have some sort of problem with all of the bites I have.

The only nice thing I saw all day.