Wear Your Bug Spray in the Projects

Last year, for work, I went on a history hike! It was so fun, I went again this year! :D

No, don't stop reading. Come on. It gets better!

This year, I brought a friend who was interested in the subject matter for a short story she's been considering. Henceforth, we shall refer to my friend as City Girl. She is no stranger to the outdoors, but I refuse to let go of this opportunity to tease her.

You see, after watching me take a DEET shower, City Girl gave herself two delicate little sprays of Off Deep Woods on her wrists, powdered her nose, adjusted her hoop skirt, and filled her canteen with enough mint julep to kill a horse.

Somehow, I just turned City Girl into Scarlet O'Hara, but whatever. It's my blog, and I can make her seem delicate however I want. Roll with it.

The first part of the day (not in the woods) is boring, but goes pretty much as planned. We break for lunch, with instructions to meet up at a parking area on the edge of a large forested park. I assume we'll be meeting at the same spot as last year, so that's where I lead City Girl.

To get to the parking area, we have to drive through the projects. Now, City Girl lives in a bona fide city with a crime rate that makes politicians just kind of throw up their hands and say, "Eh. What can you do?"

Given her experience with seriously crime-ridden areas, City Girl is ready to go buy an armored tank to drive through five blocks of low-income housing. The area indeed has a drug problem and random violence, but we're not talking daily, weekly, or even monthly drive-bys. There's a stabbing there, like, once every two years.

(Despite her fear, she is prepared to jump out of the car and throw down with the a-hole keeping a pitbull penned in his backyard. And? I respeckit.)

We arrive at the parking area, which really is just a dead-end street adjacent to a cul-de-sac of Section-8 housing. We parallel park in the grass. Some cars are parked next to each other at the dead end and are not the type of pickup trucks, sensible four-doors, and Volvo variants driven by historical society folk, who are the hike leaders. Some young men in the cars were talking to each other.

City Girl's assessment: drug deal; we gotta skidaddle.

We split, leaving the projects for an empty lot next to a vacant factory, where we can wait for the hike leaders to drive by and lead us to the parking area.

Across the way, I spy a yard sale - not normally a huge draw for me, but I submit to you: what else do you do when you're sitting in a car across from the 'jects, next to a vacant industrial warehouse, waiting for some bearded men to come take you into the woods? When in Rome, I say!

For sale in the lawn across from us is a new, blue PowerWheels Jeep. You know who would dig a blue PowerWheels Jeep? Yep. LJ and H-Dawg, miracle twins of my heart who absolutely need no such thing ...

Only 40 bucks, and I'm nearly 35 percent sure it isn't hot. At such a low price, I won't care when someone steals it to sell to the electronics trafficker living across from the vacant warehouse a couple towns over.

Eventually, we find the historical society folk and follow them all the way back to Crack Alley.

I spray myself down with the DEET. City Girl powders her nose. We pound a couple of Mickey's. Let's do this bitch.

At the edge of the woods, people are already gathered.

This is how the woods look in the easy-to-navigate part (ignore collapsed building):

Other parts of the park include wetlands, sunken graves, briars, and probably - although not 100 percent proven - animals that eat weaker beings.

You can imagine our surprise to see a group of people approaching the age of 90, standing on the edge of the forest with - I shit you not - walkers, oxygen tanks, and - I'm fairly certain - nurses. (I can come to no other conclusion for young women in scrubs standing next to old ladies with walkers and oxygen tanks.)

A map, for your convenience:

After much chitchat, we split into groups to enter the woods. Three words: not. well. planned.

Our first, and in my opinion, most interesting site, is an abandoned grave site. The members of the group, however, have forgotten about the only person who knows anything at all about the site. She is 84.

So, we're all standing around the old graves and someone says, "Hey! You know, Miss Selma is still way back there."

We have all just abandoned a senior citizen in the wilderness.

We learn nothing. People are all over the trails, without guides, possibly without their blood thinners, and there's not a Life Alert tag with a decent range among us.

It's been hours. Following this portion of the hike, there is supposed to be a six-mile hike to see some other sites. At the rate we're going, we won't be out of the woods before breakfast.

I look at City Girl. She finds a tick crawling on her arm. Yeah. We're not going on a six-mile hike. We jettison.

Back at my house, I spot another tick crawling on her hair.

Later, I get this text from her:

"Check urself. I pulled 8 ticks off me mostly on the outside of my underwear in the fitting room at outlets. Thanks for today. Had a great time."

The next day, I get this text from her:

"Happy easter! I may have chiggers but it's better than lyme disease. had these once before."

A few days later, an e-mail:

"I think I’m prone to bug bites. Mosquitos flock to me and I got chiggers once before when I lived on the farm. They were awful then. This time, they’re not so bad. I don’t think I told you this, but when I went to try on clothes, at least 3 dog ticks fell out of my pants and I didn’t have anything to kill them with. They wouldn’t die under my shoe and there were no pins to cut them with. So I just tried to keep track of them on the floor as they crawled around. I basically left the fitting room, with all these ticks crawling around and then got out of the store quickly. I was so embarrassed. It was kind of funny. Then when I got home, there were still even more. I threw my pants and t-shirt in the washer immediately. Also, there was one crawling on my parking brake when I got back into my car at your house."

City Girl has been upgraded to Public Health Threat.