Spooky week with Drake and Megan

We got to spend 10 days being neighbors with some dear friends that we hadn't seen in two years! It was definitely time for us to catch up, and meet their new little one. Who is adorable by the way. She named Ed Ba-ba, and I'm Gee. We had a fun week watching scary movies, visiting the Bell Witch cave, taking some night time walks, bike rides, and we had an amazing bonfire one night. The guys played a lot of video games while the ladies had crochet parties, and the baby force-fed us random snacks. The visit even culminated with a real-life horror story. And my camera died. That's not the horror story, but I lost some great pictures, and you will never know the wonder of our fire inside of a freaky sculpture. So, three crappy phone pictures are all I have to offer. EDIT: I'm talking photo quality. The last picture is freaking adorable.

Here's a neat formation inside of the Bell Witch Cave.

Even the town was creepy.

One night, we pulled a wagon full of party supplies across a bridge and out to this fire ring on a trail next to (what I think was) the Cumberland river. Drake and Megan had been there before, but when we arrived, a giant cage-like sculpture made out of old farm tools (rakes, hammers, pitchforks, shovels, pickaxes) had been erected around it...there was evidence of recent campfires, so I guess it was still ok? Seemed like it was built to allow for this sort of thing. It made for some super spooky shadows and silhouettes against the night sky. We watched the big river boats go by, and ate a bunch of s'mores and meat. Kind of hilarious how dangerous it was to combine fire and pointy metal tools in the dark (shovel back! Aarg!).

Drake and Scarlett, obviously pre-bee attack.
Notice she's holding a little bumble bee toy, this was one of the many foreshadowing hints we completely ignored. 

The last day of our visit, we were hiking some state park trails when we were attacked by Africanized killer bees. Really. These were chase you down, aim for the eyes, crawl into your clothes, evil hell-spawn killer bees. Megan was stung on her eyelid, and right below her eye and it was swelling up crazy fast while she was understandably freaking out, not sure if she was seriously allergic or not. We ran the whole way through the forest and back to the car while they chased us, we stripped off half our clothes because there were bees crawling on and in them, jumped in the car and headed to urgent care. Which was closed. It was a Sunday. Then we raced towards the hospital while another two bees crawled out of somewhere and started flying around in the car while Drake tried not to crash. Little Scarlett learned a new word, BEES! Poor thing is totally traumatized. We all are. After I don't know how many hours in the ER, thankfully everyone is ok. It could have been so much worse. Apparently we came upon the "alarm zone" and not the actual hive. We alerted the state apiarist, and they are investigating.

But beware, Africanized bees are spreading north, taking over "normal" European honey bee hives. Click this link to learn more. Scary stuff. Suddenly spiders and mosquitoes aren't so bad after all.

So what we have learned, is that if you travel outside of Indiana, the wildlife will try to kill you a lot more.