No one tells you the mosquitoes on Cape Cod are as bad as hunting dogs on the scent, but let me tell you what they most definitely are.
​
We started off yesterday morning at the Salt Pond visitor center with breakfast and an impromptu photo session. A photographer saw our Defender and came over to chat about it and asked if he could take some photos. He was looking for candid, and I’d say two kids on the hood eating cereal while the other two were on the roof is about as candid as it gets. Thanks Greg for the awesome photos!

Next we picked up the kids’ junior ranger books and decided to go on a ranger-led tour of Nauset marsh for one of our activities. The three older children used the duration of the ½ mile walk to complete enough activities to earn their badges and be sworn in by the ranger. We had an awesome backdrop of the marsh and outer beach as they made their junior ranger promises. The ranger was quite impressed by their diligence and patience, so she gave them not only a junior ranger badge for Cape Cod National Seashore, but also a junior range patch. They were ecstatic!

We made it to a nearby picnic area for lunch where the kids all finished up their school work for the day and got caught up on a few things they’d missed. I am incredibly proud of how hard they are all working to complete their school work each day while we are travelling across country. They truly amaze me.
​
Having filled our bellies, we headed to a nearby beach for some play time. The kids once again picked up trash along the seashore while collecting dried out crab bits, sea shells, and rocks. We all got really excited when we saw people camping on the beach with their truck campers until I found out it’s a bit of a lengthy process to get a permit to do so and the Ranger office who issues the permits was closed for the night.

After a few hours, everyone started to get hungry so we headed up to the parking lot to make dinner. And this is when our night started to fall to pieces. Even with a strong breeze, the mosquitoes in the parking lot were horrendous. Not only were they attacking me while I cooked, but they kept going after the food as well. I sent the children in the truck to watch a movie while I prepared some sausage and gnocci soup. It never crossed my mind to be concerned about having the tailgate open while doing this because the back of the truck is full of stuff literally to the ceiling. I definitely should have taken the tenacity of these mosquitoes into consideration though.

After passing each of the kids a bowl of soup through the window, I grabbed my bowl and climbed in the truck turning on the lantern as I went and saw so many mosquitoes on the ceiling it looked like it was moving. This of course freaked out the kids who’d had no idea so many mosquitoes were in the truck. By this point in time the children had finished their soup because I had packed up all the cooking stuff in the truck before climbing in to eat, so we drove off with the windows down hoping to get them out.

It worked fairly well and I was able to eat my soup after we found solace in a parking lot in a nearby town. By now it was about 8 o’clock and everyone was starting to get sleepy. We headed to a different beach nearby where we planned to pitch up the tent for the night. We saw a few mosquitoes while we pitched up, but I thought nothing of it. It was quite warm out, but there was a nice breeze, so we unzipped the windows leaving just the screens in.

Then the real assault began. Inside of the tent became a war zone. I realized there was a problem when all the kids started tossing and turning shortly after saying goodnight. I switched on the flashlight and found the inside of the tent crawling with mosquitoes – I saw at least 15 right off the bat. I killed all the ones I could track down and laid back down to sleep, now that the kids were settled.

Not even an hour later I was woken up by a mosquito bite on my leg. Switched the flashlight back on and found another 10 or 15 mosquitoes. Killed them all and laid back down to sleep. Less than an hour later, the same process repeated itself. I could not figure out how these mosquitoes were getting in the tent. We had never experienced this problem before!

All the screens were zipped tight and the tent is completely water tight, so how were these tiny mini-vampires getting in?! After a few hours of this same pattern repeating itself, I started looking for their entry point. Finally, after some searching I found a small gap on either side of tent where the tent hinges open/close. I stuffed some clothing in each gap, killed all the mosquitoes I could see and laid back down to sleep.

While this seemed to lessen the number of mosquitoes in the tent, it didn’t seem to eradicate the issue fully. There were still mosquitoes getting in – either that or they were so stealthy I hadn’t found all the ones in the tent after I plugged up the holes. It would have been somewhat bearable had we been able to cover up, but with the heat outside even sleeping naked in a sleeping bag was too warm.

By this point in time, it was after 3 o’clock in the morning and I was exhausted. I laid down with the flashlight off and looked out the screen window. There was a full moon and everything outside was illuminated. This gave the perfect backdrop to see just how many mosquitoes were outside. It was disturbing. I counted anywhere from 20-30 outside stalking the window screen. I guess now the hole had been plugged, they were struggling to figure out how to get in the tent for their midnight snack.
​
I still didn’t sleep though. It seemed every time I would start to doze off, I’d get bitten which would wake me up to go bug hunting again. I’m not really sure I got more than a couple hours of sleep last night all combined. It was one of the worst nights of sleep I’ve ever had in my life.
​
When the sky started to lighten with the sunrise, I looked around the tent. There were smears of dried blood and crushed mosquito bodies everywhere. It looked like there’d been a man vs. mosquito war and I’d been the victor. The only thing worse was the number of live mosquitoes adorning the outside of the tent. Hundreds, maybe even thousands. The photo below doesn’t do the actuality of this occurrence justice, but no doubt there was an indistinguishable number of blood-sucking insects patiently waiting for us to exit the tent, so they could enjoy their next meal.

Rather than attempt to put away the tent with the unwanted guests hovering all around, I waited until the kiddos had all climbed down and hopped inside the truck, folded up the ladder, and drove across the parking lot with the tent still up hoping the force of the air hitting the tent would blow them off. Being somewhat successful, I got the tent folded up and put away and then we hightailed it out of there. This was definitely a mosquito encounter I never want to repeat.
​
Not feeling like stopping to cook breakfast anywhere with such a horrible start to the morning. I promised the kids we’d stop somewhere for breakfast. Plymouth, the next stop on our list, wasn’t too far away and I figured we could check out Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower replica before grabbing a bite to eat.

,The children didn’t share my enthusiasm for this pit stop before breakfast though, so I heard nothing but moaning and complaining the entire time we explored Pilgrim Memorial State Park as evidenced by their faces when I tried to take a nice group photo.

​A solid four hours and a few states later we made it to our next stop – West Point recreation area. The littles got in some canoeing and fishing after being cooped up in the car all day and I got some laundry done. Tomorrow I’m super excited to be heading to see the Statue of Liberty and then back to PA for some chocolate fun at Hershey Park. Yum!