Black Flies!

It seems that we have hit the Adirondacs at a terrible time. The heart of black fly season. I first started getting bit up climbing up Kancamagus Pass. It was all I could do to control my bike as I was climbing at about 4 miles an hour for 5 hours, so to attempt to swat at these little creatures at the same time was impossible. When I got to the top it looked like someone had taken a pellet gun and shut the back of my legs and arms over and over again. I had blood spots all over. And the next couple of days they have only gotten worse. They seem to be immune to any type of bug spray so all we can do is keep swatting. I was sitting outside a bike shop the other day waiting for Bruce and Evie's bike to be finished worked on and counted 90 different bites on just my legs. Fortunately, at least for me, they don't itch too bad. Unfortunately, Evie seems to be having some kind of reaction to them. Her hands and face have swollen quite a bit, especially in the morning. Bruce's bites are swollen as well. Karla seems to have gotten bit quite a bit on her face but she hasn't reacted to them at this point either. So that's just been another fun aspect to the trip.

We have decided that our bodies need a day off. So this morning we biked about 25 miles to Lake Ontario and will be camping out here the next 2 days. It will be nice to have a chance to simply relax, do some reading and enjoy the area. The trip also seems to be wearing on us mentally as well (the bug bites don't help that either I guess) so hopefully a day off will help with that as well. Our next week or so look pretty nice, a couple days til we get to some relatives of Bruce and Evie's, another day and we'll be at Niagara Falls and then its 2 days down to my fiance, Kaylenes family. And I think we also are staying at a Mennonite-your-way place somewhere in there. So we're all looking forward to that.

I'll let Bruce and Evie post on some of the other aspects of the trip. Thanks for all the comments!