The Camping Chronicles: The Mothman

Aaron likes bugs and critters and things. It's cute. He's fascinated by anything that moves on it's own. That's why when we were all sitting around the campfire enjoying conversation it was Aaron who went to investigate the large moth that was fluttering around the lantern on the picnic table. It really was very large. But that didn't mean that Aaron didn't want to hold it. He came back to sit around the campfire with a new friend. He called it Toby. It just perched on Aaron's hand or arm like shown in the picture for a long time. I think Aaron eventually removed it. It never flew away. We began calling him the Mothman.

Pretty soon we noticed an even larger moth alight on the table. Aaron was tempted by the bigger and better moth. He caught it and tried to tame this one as he had the other, and while it didn't fly away, it wouldn't calm down and just fluttered it's wings and walked all over Aaron's hands. But I still managed to snap a picture of it. Look at that wingspan! :) Oh, and there's Toby, still hanging out.

Aaron was standing near where my brothers were sitting and probably threatening them with them moths or something when Jason said something like, "If that moth lands on me it's gonna die." Just then the moth flew off of Aaron and immediately to Jason. Jason hastily jumped out of his chair and batted and flailed his arms at the giant bug and eventually herded it a seat over to Cameron who then repeated his older brothers behavior. It was very amusing.
Saturday night it was just us and Chris's family who remained. We were playing a game of hearts around the table and using a lantern for light. Another giant moth came and flopped and fluttered around the table. Nobody appreciates their presence like Aaron does, so we convinced him to toss it away after he caught it. He did. But not until he told it to return with a giant eagle, like Gandalf did in The Lord of The Rings. A little while later Aaron reached across the table, his arm right in front of me, and pointed to some other, normal sized, moths stuck in something sticky and when he pulled his arm back the giant moth was suddenly right there! It wasn't there when he put his arm out! Aaron's mothiness was a little bit creepy.
On our way home the next day we were driving through the cow infested hills when suddenly a huge bird is flying right in front of us. It landed on a little hill right next to the car. It was an eagle. A golden eagle very close to our car. We almost got a picture, but Aaron rolled down the window and the noise scared it off. Either that or when the moth gave the eagle the message from Aaron it didn't include instructions to pose for a picture.