I think that the worst was Missouri where we had roaches. They were legion. They lived in any paper product, crack or crevice. We had to have the place fumigated twice and still we had lots of them to spare. A friend of ours happened to be the bug doctor at the Hospital. He told us that many of the roach strains in Fort Leonard Wood had become immune to the incsecticides that the Army exterminators used. I had an image of the little bugs huffing the spray.

In Texas it was crickets. They came all of a sudden one evening and swarmed all over the town of Lampasas. Driving home that evening sounded like popcorn popping. They smashed on the windshield and smeared when I tried the wipers. They literally blackened the sky. Come morning they were gone.

In California we had ants. Lots and lots of ants. They got into everything, we had to ziploc the sugar and any thing that had sugar in it. Little lines of ants worked their way all through the house. They found whatever crumb or left-over that didn't get put away properly...and they found them FAST.

In Stuttgart we had bees. Every Spring we had to dodge and duck as they swooped around us looking for something colorful and sweet. Everyone of us got stung at least once every year. Except in the years that had an early false Spring and the bees came out only to get frozen in a late snow.

Vietnam? Don't get me started... bugs, snakes, flies, the little gekko lizards that would crawl up the wall and yell "f*** you" (it is true, that is what most of us called them: "F*** You Lizards"), and little brown guys with guns; but mosquitos were the worst (well...maybe the guys with guns were worst) Big as a small humming bird and bearing a quenchless thirst. They would raise a welt the size of a dime that would itch like madness for a week or more. Many of us would burn the bites with a cigarette because the burn would heal faster than the bite and hurt less.

Arizona was fairly clear of pests...in town. But the desert is full of scorpions, snakes, and lizards. And every now and then a very colorful, slow, poisonous lizard called a Gila Monster will find its way into a back yard. And Crickets.  And everyone there has been deafened by the drone of the Cicadas.  And after a thunderstorm in the desert a million toads and frogs will climb up onto the asphalt to avoid the water.

Here in the Swirling Epicenter, the altitude and cold winters eliminate a lot of the common pests that we have endured in our travels and adventures. We occasionally get bees and mesquitos, rarely see a bug in the house. But every Summer as soon as the Spring rains slow down, we get flooded by millions of medium-sized moths. They are called Miller Moths and they wind up in everything. In the morning when I raise the garage door it is like the bats swarming out of Mammoth Cave. They get in the house, the car, stores, everywhere. I kinda get a kick out of watching them try to get to the lights on the ceiling fan and getting batted across the room when they get into the fans arc. The moths appear to be the main diet of several of the local birds, but the Swallows especially. They are like Zoomies (Air Force fighter pilots), they fix on a target moth and tune out anything else. The moths like to sit on the warm asphalt so the birds are constantly swooping in and around traffic. Most years I get at least one bird embedded in my grill (Grilled Swallow, anyone?). I mention it because we are in the middle of "Miller Time" right now. They donk us on the head, scare us when we turn on the lights, cause "Target Fixation" at traffic lights (motorists who become so entranced watching birds swooping on moths that they miss the changing of the lights) and just generally piss us off.

Every Paradise has its price? I guess. I never made a secret of the fact that basically, I am just passin' through...well...I guess I am staying.