"I ducked and dodged my way for about 20 feet, stepping over rusted beer cans while being startled by jackrabbits. At one point I turned around, and realized I had lost all orientation. I also felt a strange stinging pain. I looked downward. It was 90 degrees in September, I was in shorts, and giant bugs were all over my bare legs, biting away."
"This is where I tell you that I'm from the Bay Area, not Louisiana. Have you ever been to the South? Have you ever had loud, noisy insects buzzing in the trees all around you? Like, one million zillion insects of unusual size, nattering away in a constant thrum of menace, of taunting, of BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ? Amplify that sound by 20 decibels, add humid air and muddy shoes, subtract 3 quarts of equilibrium, and that's pretty much where I was at."
I began at the northern edge of an overgrown golf course, following a map clearing by a lake. I forced through a wall of eight-foot reeds, ducking and dodging about 20 feet while stepping over rusted beer cans and startling jackrabbits. I lost orientation and felt stinging insect bites on bare legs in 90-degree heat. A mud-and-foliage slough masqueraded as a road leading west to a rectangular farm building near another lake, which proved not to be the juke joint. Knowing the juke joint was movie-made and torn down, I still sought any remnant. I turned back and took a southward road toward more clearings, then noticed gravel.
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