Chapter 13: Field Trip




      "Dang, all the campgrounds are full," Freida-Mae exclaims, pointing an unveiled arm toward the sign on the gatehouse to Shenandoah National Park.

"Now what?" I worry as I turn the Ford Fairlane into a dirt pullout and wind down the window in the late afternoon heat seething up onto the ridge line.

"I've got to get my project set up before dark," she frets, sweat beading on her upper lip as she unfolds a Virginia map from the glove box. 

"How about we head south?" I suggest, feeling the fine hairs standing up on her forearm as I reach over and point to the green line of the Blue Ridge Parkway.



     I'd finally caught up with FM in the library on the Sunday evening after her sleepover. She'd immediately asked for help with an Entomology field project, and that was all the explanation either of us needed. After reviewing the teacher's suggestions, we'd decided on a comparative survey of insect species collected in two different habitats. 

     Later that week the professor had not only approved her idea but also offered a loan of Biology Department gear and his own old car. FM arranged for pick-up on Saturday morning and then drove right over to the Delta Ep house. It was early afternoon by the time we'd gotten groceries and were headed west on Interstate 64, giddy with our best laid plans.

     Little did we know that the summer camping season started before Memorial Day in the Virginia highlands. Redbuds and dogwoods were in full flower, tinting the hillsides pink and white beneath an unfolding canopy of spring green. Apparently we weren't going to be the only ones frolicking in the mountains.



     "You dig the pitfall traps and set up the blacklight down here," she calls over a shoulder while sashaying across a trickling creek and up the path to Humpback Rock. "I'll do it up top and be back for supper."

"I love it when you talk dirty with me," I rasp as her red hiking shorts disappear into the forested slope and I hammer the first of the tent stakes into a small clearing tucked under a rhododendron thicket.





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