The Secret Life of Yellow Jackets

I can’t believe this is my third fall season in North Carolina, and before today I had never experienced the frenzy of “peak leaf season” in the nearby mountains. Jen and I decided to get out of Charlotte for the day to get some fresh air and join a gazillion other folks on the Blue Ridge Parkway. According to the folks at the Northern Trading Post (store along the BRP) these past few weeks are the actual peak time and being that they are expecting a frost tomorrow, we picked the perfect day. We had big plans for the day. We started the day by stumbling across Jen’s beloved childhood camp, Camp Cheerio, and made our way down the BRP from the Virginia border. Our plan was to end in Blowing Rock and grab an early dinner for the ride home. We had a cheap and warm meal at Bluffs Lodge restaurant and got quite a bit of fall color before our plans were foiled, no pun intended. We brought out puppy Tonka with us and I tied him to a fence post as I tried to get a shot of Jen sitting in a tree looking out over the mountains. As soon as I had lifted Jen up, Tonka started going crazy. Barking and rolling around on the ground. This behavior is actually quite normal for Mr. T. It was Jen screaming “Bee! Bee” that jerked me to attention. Mr. T was stung by a bee (or ate one) earlier this year and his face swole up twice the size of his head. After a lot of slobber and a very expensive trip to the vet he was okay. The problem is that we were nowhere near a vet, up in the mountains on a Saturday. He must have gotten into a yellow jacket nest or something. He was covered in them. Both Tonka and I were stung several times but lucky enough we found a Food Lion and got Benadryl in us both. Jenny was saved by the simple fact that she was stuck in a tree and it took her a minute to get down without breaking any bones. Oh well. Blowing Rock another day.