1109 July 24, 2024 We Shall Prevail!

I was sound asleep.  I heard Tim shouting “Anita, get up.  Come here now!  We have a problem!”  I ran from my bed to see what the problem might be…ants…thousands of ants.  The tiny, fast kind.  The kind that don’t bite…thankfully!  They were running in a long, thick, and steady stream from one end of the RV to the other.  A whole battalion, an army. OMG!!!!  So many ants!!! These ants had gathered themselves, deployed, and were overtaking our space; all in less than 24 hours!

We got out rags and white vinegar and started to clean. Tim shook out rugs and got out ant bait. He headed to the store for ant spray while I cleaned the entire floor with vinegar a second time. Then, I began to sweep. I knew that I couldn’t leave any corpses behind because they release pheromones when they die causing other ants to return for their bodies. Yikes! I swept the entire coach 5 times and then I got out the vacuum.

We were on ant patrol; looking for any stragglers.

I actually felt bad killing the poor little guys but this is our kingdom! Tim sprayed our leveling jacks and the tires and our water supply hose and our electric cord. We felt like we had made enough progress that we could go into Chattanooga for the day as planned.

Tim made one last check outside and he saw a steady flow of ants coming from a tree branch and walking right onto the roof. He climbed the ladder and did some population control. He trimmed the branch so that the ants no longer had a bridge to the RV. I found more ants traipsing up the side of that tree from the ground. We sprayed the trunk of the tree to knee height and then annihilated the troops.

We were half scared to leave.

We drove into the city with the Jeep; our bikes on the back. We parked at the River Gallery Sculpture Garden.

We biked along Riverfront Drive and across the bridge to the other side of the Tennessee River. We shared some mango Hawaiian ice from Happy’s House, “the fun place where smiles are real.”

We biked in the waterfront park and then crossed the river again.

We rested on a pier.

These flags fly in the memory of some hometown marine heroes. They all perished in the same incident on July 16, 2015.

We biked on to Scotties on the River. We had cold water and sweet tea and a delicious lunch. We were refreshed and ready to ride again.

The city is hilly and I had to get off and push my bike on the steepest sections.

We got back to the campground at around 4. We were afraid of what we might find…but only a couple of ants remained. So far so good!

We took some celery and peanut butter and some melon to the picnic area by the water. We certainly did not want a big dinner this evening.

We have been to Chattanooga several times. We like it here and could have spent more time…but we are headed south and we will move again tomorrow.