Love Bugs!

Not the Disney version…

 

Most everyone that lives in, or has driven through the deep South within the last few years, are familiar with love bugs.  For those of you that haven’t experienced them, consider yourselves lucky.  Seems every part of the World has their bugs from Hell.  Biting flies, mosquito’s, black gnats; the list goes on. Our most hated insect is the love bug.

A native of Central America, it migrated North, and was first identified in Texas over fifty years ago.  They get their name from their mating process.  A male and female lock up and stay connected till death, apparently.  The female is the larger of the two, and the male is along for the ride.  They live together and die together.  Though they don’t bite, they are a real pain in the rear end.  They hover over the roads, fields, and most other open spaces. They are drawn to anything of a lighter color. That includes bare skin.

 

They slowly spread across the Gulf South, living, breeding, and dying along our highways.

A swarm of them usually last two to three weeks. When smashed by a vehicle, they leave a greasy residue that is really hard to remove.  If not removed quickly, it will damage the automobile finish.  We met up with some today near Alexandria, LA, and they stayed with us all the way to the campground.  I’ll spend Monday cleaning the truck and camper of all this mess.

On a brighter note, we spent Saturday night at a great COE campground near Jasper, TX.  Sandy Creek has over fifty sites with water and electric.  Many backing right up on the lake.

Though most are back-in, there’s a number of huge pull-through’s.

A really nice place to spend the evening, in spite of the bugs.

More later……jc