We got midged

Lately the wind has been in charge of whether our ride is fun or otherwise. Today was no different. The wind was headed north in a hurry. It so happened that we were heading north too. Happy days.

Today’s ride also featured two passes: one to get us out of the valley in which Glencolumbkille resides and another just before the town of Ardara. The climbing wasn’t tough and the descents were screaming fast, thanks to our favorite friend Mr. Tailwind. The second descent in particular felt like my bike had a rocket attached. Strava says my max speed was around 48mph.

Since the wind was so friendly, we decided to stick to the national road. The national roads are essentially highways, with mild grades and smooth paving. They usually have lots of high speed traffic, and we usually avoid them. But here in County Donegal traffic was very light. We were able to sail quickly and smoothly to our destination at the Sleepy Hollow Campground, just beating a brief rain shower.

When we checked in with the campground host, he offered us some bug spray to ward off the midges. I declined, thinking that midges were annoying but easy to deal with by quickly entering and exiting the tent. At first, my assumption was correct. Then the wind died down and it started to rain. Carrie volunteered to grab our laundry drying on our bikes to stash in our tent’s vestibules. When she exited the tent she entered into a cloud of midges. While screaming, she grabbed our clothes and tried as quickly as she could to get back in the tent. Upon re-entry her face was covered with midges. She was swatting and screaming as I tried to help her zip up her tent door.

We spent the next half hour systematically killing all the midges that had breached our tent fortress. Midge guts lined the inside walls, some streaked with our blood. There were so many of the suckers caught between the rain fly and the inner tent that it sounded like a light drizzle. We dared not leave our tent until the morning.