PEI 3: Selective Inattention Pays Off

Wednesday night (July 20, 2017): 

Between dillydallying in Charlottetown and sampling the Confederation Trail, we arrived at Northumberland Provincial Park shortly before dark. Even arriving late we never had any worries about having a place to stay. The provincial park people had assured us that they always make room somewhere for cyclists. But this one wasn't even close to full. Maybe only half. Hard to believe, as beautiful as it was. Then again...

While checking in, we started swatting at flies, black flies like the kind we get in New Hampshire during the first warm days of spring, the kind that go right for your hairline, on the back of your neck, drawing blood and leaving big welts. The woman who was checking us in offered us some bug spray, but we didn't want to take the time for it.

"They're usually only bad for a couple hours, at dawn and at dusk," she said. 

She showed us a map with the available campsites. We picked out one on the water.

She asked again. "You sure you don't want any bug spray?"

I said, "Oh, no, we'll be fine. We're just going to shower anyway."

We were not fine. We walked through a cluster of trees to our campsite that sat on bluffs overlooking the ocean. Before we could congratulate ourselves on having found such a choice piece of real estate, the flies descended on us, attacking in a swarm, our faces, hands, arms, neck, behind our ears. We alternated between swatting them and tearing into our panniers, throwing everything on the picnic table as we searched for fresh clothes, soap, and towel. Grabbing insect repellent, we walked as quickly as possible to the showers.

There were no bugs in the shower. Thank god. Dressing, I pulled my socks over the cuffs of my pants, put on a long-sleeve shirt, sprayed my baseball cap generously with insect repellent, and sprayed a bandanna, too, which I tied around my neck.

We noticed a small pile of kindling at the campsite. A fire might be just the thing to keep the bugs away. But we'd need more wood. And there, right in the empty campsite next door, sat a neatly stacked pile of wood. While Rob set up the tent I worked quickly to get a fire going in the little campfire ring in the grass. 

The woman at the office had said that the bugs were only bad until dark. She didn't say anything about the mosquitoes that came out to take their place. Fortunately, the smoke did work to keep them at bay and we enjoyed sitting around the fire - in the smoke - for a couple hours, watching the sun set and the stars come out.

Just before going to bed, Rob came back from the bathroom and said he'd seen a sign saying campfires were prohibited due to dry conditions. Yup, I had noticed it too, right there in plain view. I wondered if the other campfires belonged to people who didn't see the signs, or chose to ignore them. I'm just thankful that we both conveniently didn't notice it before.

I took these pictures the following morning. Above is the view from our campsite. Below is Rob packing up for the next day's ride. You can see our little campfire ring, where we enjoyed our illegal fire.