Mark brought his boys to the U.S. for the first time this summer, and spent 20 days here. It’s hard to recap all of the stuff we did, but here’s a short list… BIG DEEP INHALE: Washington D.C., Smithsonian and Udvar-Hazy, Luray Caverns, Smith Mountain Lake, Blacksburg, fishing and tubing on the New River and around the valley, Williamsburg, Busch Gardens rollercoasters, Water Country water slides, Virginia Beach, first time swimming in the ocean, more fishing, the aquarium, lots of swimming pools and flight simulators, and food that was bad for us, and sleepless nights and fights and joys and no one got burned. Nope, not even the freckled redhead. Mark developed a sunglasses/glasses tan line on his face, which is spectacular, but no one got painfully sunburned. That small victory right there was a big win, even if Finlay is scarred for life over my incessant sunscreen harping.
All of the spawn, all over the state.
I could write a huuuuuuge article, or seven, or twenty seven, about all of the things experienced, both by the new tourists and my kids (and their friends, who came with us as well, because why not six kids when there’s already four). But no. It’s too much to recount and there’s really no need for it when there’s a story that will stand out in my head forever. And I think it’s the best one.
If you didn’t know, Scotland is really far north. Really far. One of the biggest differences, and smallest, is the bugs there are not nearly as prevalent and invasive as they are in Virginia. We have screens in windows and doors; they, for the most part, simply don’t. There’s no need because there’s no mosquitoes, and not nearly so many other creepy crawling winged things that will come in and swarm and make themselves at home. And the windows aren’t open as much as they are here anyway because the temperate months are shorter and it’s colder, in general.
Yes, there are definitely midges, and they’re famous in Scotland. Those things are teeny tiny but travel in massive herds, and they should be avoided. But I’ve never seen a huge swarm of them in Waterfoot. I don’t want to either.
I’ve also never seen huge monarch butterflies, or ginormous black ants, or inchworms there, all like we have in Virginia. There are no black widows, or any really any spider that’s going to kill you. There’s no, what we call, Daddy Long Legs… they have something they call Daddy Long Legs, but we determined their version has wings. They’re more like our crane flies.
Out of all of the bugs they have or don’t have, there’s one that the three of them got to experience together, on a warm July night, in my backyard.
Fireflies.
We’d just gotten to Blacksburg, after spending the first few days in Northern Virginia, acclimating to the heat and humidity. We’d driven down 81, stopping at Luray Caverns, and dropping James off at his dad’s family’s place at Smith Mountain Lake. We got to Blacksburg about 7pm, and went for pizza downtown, and then came back to my place. I went out back, and called them all outside together. Cue three amazed and awestruck Scotsmen. No, even Mark had never seen a proper Virginia summer night firefly party.
At that point, the fireflies had retreated from the grass for the most part, and were twinkling, thousands of them, in the treetops. It looked like a massive wireless twinkle light display. They all stood, just saying “wow” and “oh my gosh” and “wow” over and over again. It didn’t look real to them, but it was. And it was, simply, magical. It was magical to show three people, who just due to geography and climate, don’t have something as moving as a firefly display.
The next night, the boys attempted to catch some in mason jars. One was successful, the other wasn’t, but it proved to them that TV shows and movies definitely make catching them seem a lot easier than it actually is.
I don’t know if they’ll remember ever little moment of their big first trip here, but I feel fairly certain that someday they’ll be able to tell their own kids about the first time they ever saw fireflies.
A random picture of fireflies, no not from my backyard, but close enough
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