Louisiana: Watch Out for the Stobor

At the end of the Blue Goose Trail, Sabine Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana

In Robert Heinlein's sci-fi classic, Tunnel in the Sky, the professor warns the survival-class students: Watch out for the stobor.

The students assumed the terrible stobor were large, fierce beasts such as lions or dragons. So the students chose their survival gear with these threats in mind. Little did the students know that the stobor were actually .... well, I don't want to ruin it for you.

I had feral pigs and alligators in mind when I packed gear for my tiny foray to the Sabine Wildlife Refuge south of Hackberry, Louisiana. I had a long stick and I had my knife.

But neither pigs nor alligators were the stobor. .... the stobor were the dratted flies that plagued my face, hat, and neck! Thank God I brought my bandana! And now I know to invest in more earplugs because all I thought about as I swatted and swore like a crazed woman was that my ears were exposed.