Bridge to Tickadia
Cross that bridge when you come to it, or… burn it before you get to it.
Tickadia? Wait, what? Yes, I’m calling it Tickadia instead of Arcadia. Why, you may ask? Well, I’ll tell you…
There’s a quaint little hand-bridge at the start of a hiking path which quietly meanders through the beautiful winter foliage of Rhode Island’s Arcadia State Park. A perfect place to capture colorful, yet serene photos of nature in all its seasonal glory.
Except looks can be deceiving. With camera in hand I crossed that bridge not knowing the peril that awaited. Immediately after traversing the wooden span I was attacked by a deadly swarm of rampaging ticks, biting and leaving red, swollen, and itchy bullseye targets all over my delicate skin — even in hard to reach places that I’d rather not mention.
While shooting a few soon-to-be, award-winning shots (and without dropping my camera) I was able to fend off the hordes of flesh-eating, blood-sucking, lyme-disease-leaving, vampiristic creepy-crawlies, and escape that infested and quite hellish nightmare.
Shortly thereafter I ended up in the Emergency Room where a smirking Doctor put me on a regiment of antibiotics and told me to wait and see if fever, headaches, hemorrhaging, and death would follow.
Luckily for me, through the grace of God and good medicine, the Grim Reaper didn’t come knocking. And thankfully, I did end up with some good photos and a tall tale to tell.
Cross that bridge when you come to it. Sure, that’s a good idiom…. Unless, you’re going to be eaten alive and die a slow agonizing death, in which case you might just want to burn that bridge before you get to it. Choose wisely.
Lon Casler Bixby is a professional photographer and published author in various genres: Fiction, Poetry, Humor, Photography, & Comic Books.
You can see some of his photography here — www.whileyouweresleeping.photography/ and here — www.neoichi.com/.
See his writing here — www.amazon.com/author/loncaslerbixby/.
