Pizza and Mozzie Bites

Forecasters are predicting thunderstorms the next couple days, which may foil plans to canoe Diamond Gorge tomorrow (more likely, though, we’d just go in the rain). For now, things remain sunny and hot.

Last night everyone gathered around the outdoor pizza oven for a pizza party, Mornington-style. The raised, open-door oven bakes nicely when filled with hot coals. Pizza-making festivities were as creative as the potential ingredients (or lack thereof); Sara and I layered baked beans, salsa, onions, cheese, and chili powder on our dough. Tasty! Two of our closest “neighbors” even came over for the occasion, flying in from an outlying station 2 hours away.

When I went to bed, though, my feet were itching like crazy. I counted more than 40 mosquito bites on each leg below the knee (that’s probably a hundred just on my legs). Everyone says not to scratch, because it causes heat rash, and at least one field tech has landed in the hospital this year with severe heat rash after a week of unbearable agony – while several others have come down with less extreme cases. Not something to be trifled with, so I try to leave my itchy mozzie bites alone.