I am back from a week in the field collecting at Nescopeck State Forest and Promised Land State Park, which I highly recommend camping at the latter site, it is gorgeous there, heaps of trails, lots of excellent camping spots. Overall it was a fantastic trip and will leave you with a few of the highlights: The collecting was excellent, even with a few chilly nights and drizzling rain, the bugs were out scurrying about in numbers. A number of very rare or new state occurrences were collected, every bug was a new county record for the state in the museum collection since I recently went through and recorded county records from the state of over 430 species. The trip was made well worth it from those few exceptional finds. I am thankful for my water proof tent which stood the test of several blustery thunderstorms which quickly passed through the nights. I am especially thankful for my $12 knee high rubber boots which kept my feet dry and my prAna pants which dry out almost instantaneously, which most of the collecting occurred in swamps, bogs, creeks and lake edges. I wore the same pair of pants all week, I over packed thinking I would, at some point, fall into a body of water. I need more pants like that. I went walking along white sand beaches at midnight and meandered through the giant elephant ears of skunk cabbage highlighting the edges of the tannin stained black swampy murk with vibrant pale green. I hiked and strolled in cathedrals of the forest in bright sun, drizzling rain and in the pitch darkness and stillness of night. There was the almost deafening chorus of spring peepers and bull frogs serenading us, their eyes peering back at us gleaming from the pond water surface from the headlamp light. The beetles that were sought after were jewels glittering in the deepest hues of emerald, sapphire, gold and vermillion, iridescent surfaces with reflective and refractive hairs covering their tiny shiny black bodies. Stomping and treading over thick mats of sphagnum moss amongst the laurels and cattails, not knowing how deep the water was below my feet as I slowly sank down into the swampy edge of the lake. How many miles of hiking did I accumulate each day as we first scoped out and investigated trails and potential collecting sites during the day, then returning to the sites after dark in pursuit of the nocturnal beasts. Apologizing to the red-backed salamanders and red-spotted efts, of whom I disturbed dozens of each in my rock flipping, log rolling and bark peeling in my search for beetles. They are so tiny and beautiful yet ill appreciated I was burned by bombardier beetles, their mixture of quinones and hydrogen peroxide and other glandular secretions that defensively explode a burst of boiling hot gas in a squeaking pop of white smoke as I picked them up off of the mucky substrate. Our campsite was on the tip of a peninsula into the Lake, surrounded on three sides by water, with our own private little beach. We had a pair of Mallard ducks frequent the site. %PHOTO{"http://denovich.org/gallery/wildlife/Image_50"}% On an early night in from collecting, early, meaning we were back to camp by eleven pm, we built a small bon fire under a star filled sky reflecting off of the impossibly smooth and black mirror surface of the lake, the sky complete with a large silvery green meteorite splashing across a back drop of the Milky Way. We renamed 'Conservation Island' to 'Infinity Island' as we missed the exit trail with our heads and headlamps pointing straight down to the ground searching for beetles and circled the island 1 3/4 times, realizing, 'Hey, that's the second time we�ve passed that light trap glowing in the distance,' and, 'it only took us fifteen minutes to reach the beaver lodge from the exit, why is it taking us over an hour to get to the exit?' Laughing hysterically for the hours following realizing how silly it was to get 'lost' on a singular circular trail that, for all intents and purposes, was a straight line. Mustn't forget Honey Hole Road to Nescopeck and collecting on Park Ave in The Promised Land nor the 50-cents-for-three-minutes of a desperately needed hot shower mid-week. I have been to The Promised Land and it is beautiful there.