What better way to get back on the travel blog pony but with a post about an outbreak of destructive tree-killing bugs.

I’m in Santa Fe, NM for the summer playing with the opera, just in time for a decennial plague of Douglas Fir Tussock Moths.

It started out innocently enough about two weeks ago when I was camping at Hyde Memorial State Park near the top of that elevation. On a hike. I saw a little caterpillar cross the trail – just one. So cute. I was sure not to step on it.

Then I made my bi-weekly campground move across the street to Black Canyon campground. At first, there were just a few of these caterpillars. Just a few, and basically only on the tires.

As the week went on, the population grew and grew. I tried brushing them off the tires, but they were just all back within 10 minutes. Currently there are about 100 on each tire luckily they don’t seem to like climbing aluminum trailer surface. I must’ve put my tent down soon enough that they haven’t really got inside that. Yet.

But now they’re making cocoons. Lots of them. And they’re swarming together, dropping to the ground, and climbing back up.

Have you seen the 1977 William Shatner horror-film “Kingdom of the Spiders”? I have.

I wish I hadn’t.