We got to Gambrills State Park in Frederick about 3:00 PM. We are going to have dinner with my son and his daughter this evening. I’m filling the water while Deb goes down to pay for our site at the camp host’s campsite. We are noticing a lot of stinkbugs here. When Deb got back to camp she said the hosts rig was covered with the stink bugs.

We got our camp setup and went to dinner. We had to fit dinner between Gabrielle’s homework and her tumbling class. She’s a very busy girl. We had a great dinner at Isabella’s. It’s a great tapas restaurant in Fredrick. We had a good time and it was good to see everyone.

When we got back to our camp we had a surprise. There where now about a million stink bugs. The bugs where covering the outside of the rig. You could not get in the door with out getting a lot of them inside.

It didn’t matter if the door was closed or not, they got in. We where up until the early hours of the morning catching the bugs. Deb looked them up on the net and found a lot of chatter. People where being inundated by these creatures. She found several tactics to use on the plague. We where drowning them in Dawn and water, catching them in a plastic zip lock and freezing them in the freezer. It seamed they where getting in through the rear air conditioner so we shut it off and turned on the forward unit. We where finally able to get some sleep.
 
It turns out, for reasons unknown to entomologists, the brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys, has invaded Pennsylvania. They have obviously found there way to Frederick as well.

                                                                                              

The bug was accidentally introduced ten years ago; it bears the classic shield shape of its family and grows to be about ½-inch long. It is dappled brown; it has a tan underside and a series of black and white markings along the edge of its body.

We where going to stay another day at Gambrills State Park, but we couldn’t take the bugs. We are headed to Baltimore to se more family and less bugs.