Frandtastic!

You may have heard, New Jersey (and much of the Northeast) has a real treat this summer with the emergence of the 17-year cicada. If you take a little gander at the map linked above, and zoom in real nice on New Jersey, you'll see it's actually pretty spotty where these cicadas have been popping up. We were hoping they'd be everywhere - but we actually had to go seek them out.

Last Tuesday, I hurried home from work so we could enjoy these musical guys before the sun went down. Too bad you can't hear them, it's the best part! And now, some pictures that will either make you happy or gross you out.

Friday night after work we decided to head up to Stokes State Forest to ring in the summer with some camping.

The two hour drive was nice, to just talk and review our weeks and all the things that are going on. When we got to our campsite, the sun had just set and it was the perfect time of day. The bullfrogs and birds were singing, welcoming us to our little camping spot. After setting up, we gathered up some wood and had a nice little fire. When we were watching the fire we noticed some fireflys up at the top of the pines, they were dancing up there like little stars. We read in the tent for a while, then star gazed and fell asleep (but only after having a few tick freak out moments - they were so sick and loved eating us).




I was really terrified we would be attacked by a black bear (last time Paul was in Stokes Forest he saw one!). So I came prepared with pepper spray, a hatchet, and a large knife, which I might have slept next to. Paul caught me reading the Pepper Spray instructions by flashlight. I don't even know if it would've worked on a bear (it's self defense spray - not bear spray), and I had nightmares remembering the bear expert biology professor I TA'd for at BYU talking about how bears loved pepper spray and would roll around in it, but maybe I imagined all that because I just read the paper he wrote about it and bears really do hate pepper spray. Luckily, no bears, phew! But, I probably got about 3 hours of sleep total due to my restless mind.


I love waking up inside a tent to see the blue sky and green trees all around and hear the sounds of nature.


After our 50th check for ticks on our bodies (ow! ow!), we headed out for a bike ride and I enjoyed the beautiful place we were. I always loving riding next to Paul. It's fun to see how strong he is on a bike, and yet how patient he is when I am not. We had a few adventures, trying to go on a road that Google Maps showed us but that was actually gone. Fording a river (with our bikes), and trespassing on Private Property (sorry old man we scared so bad) so I didn't have to do a 20 mile steep uphill detour (there was no way my body could handle that with the mucus I was coughing up by then - stupid cold!).
Luckily we survived and got back to our campsite eventually.






We stopped at Jumboland Diner on our way home. Don't worry, my stack of pancakes and hashbrowns fed me that morning and fed both of us for dinner Sunday night. SO much food.