Lovebugs

I was driving home today (for 10 1/2 hours, to be exact!) and for a short little stretch between Cleveland and Sour Lake, Texas, I found myself being bombarded with lovebugs. No, seriously -- this was more than the normal nuisance they are during "lovebug season." I was being bombarded. I think about 17,432 lovebugs met their fate on my windshield, grill, and mirrors. Even though my windshield was constantly being spattered and everything I was seeing was through bug guts, it was not until I realized that I could see all of their bodies on the road, and could actually hear them in my wheel wells that I started getting really grossed out. When I finally got out of the thick of it and pulled over to wash my windshield, this is what it looked like.Conner was pretty impressed.
All of this lovebug business made me realize that I didn't really know anything about them, except that in their season there are tons of them and they disgustingly fly around "attached" to each other, seemingly oblivious to anything else I decided to consult wikipedia a few moments ago. Did you know:

• Upon reaching maturity, the lovebug spends almost the entirety of its life copulating with its mate.
• After mating, the male dies and is dragged around by the female until she lays her eggs.
• If left for more than an hour or two (so much for that...), the remains of the lovebug become dried and extremely difficult to remove. (Ummm...yeah!) The remains can even leave pits and etches in automotive paint. (Good thing we've made advances there and it's not as bad as it used to be!)
• One of the greatest concerns they cause is their remains clogging vehicle radiator air passages and obstructing windshields.
  
• Urban legend hold that lovebugs are a result of a University of Florida genetics experiment gone wrong.

They're just gross and annoying little bugs!

And to top it all off, I could hardly see out of my back window, either. Gammie and Poppy live on a dirt road. After a heavy dew (Which is nearly every morning), when you drive down the dirt road, the dust sticks to your wet vehicle. After several days of this, I literally could not even see an outline or a headlight out of the part of the back window that my wiper couldn't reach. It actually made mud when I squirted it with my wiper/wash!Bret has already rinsed my filthy van off for me. (Yes, there was a puddle of mud beneath the back window.) I'm thinking it may get an actual wash sometime this week...

Even with all that, We did make it home this evening. (10 1/2 hours, 8 stops, three of my favoriate stopping places letting me down because they had not opened back up yet.) It was wild -- as soon as we crossed the Texas/Louisiana border I started seeing billboards that had suffered wind damage. then it was so apparent where the worst of the storm went through. I started seeing more and more fallen trees/broken signs, etc... as we approached Lafayette, the Atchafalaya Swamp Basin was torn up pretty badly, and then there was less and less damage as we drove out of Baton Rouge. Traffic was pretty crazy there. Apparently, their power is just now coming back on and folks are just returning home this weekend. We are hoping and praying that we won't have to do this whole hurricane evacuation this again next week with Ike...