From July 5-10, 2017, it was off to Mothapalooza held annually for the last five years in Ohio, usually at the Shawnee Lodge and Conference Center near Portsmouth Ohio. Very well organized and fun as about 185 people interested in moths and nature in general convened for several days of daily field trips, workshops and speaker presentations, and nightly outings looking for moths.

The daily field trips turned up a nice variety of butterflies, including three new lifers for me, the Harvester, Eastern Comma, and Southern Cloudywing, and Rebecca also would add Wild Indigo Duskywing to her life list. These trips were led by experts in entomology, botany, and other fields, and would find and talk about any number of interesting creatures they'd turn up as we slowly walked along. My first experience with mothing, the evening trips gave us a good introduction to the incredible variety of moths out there that were drawn to white sheets illuminated with ultraviolet lights. Moth experts were quite helpful in pointing out and identifying many of the species that showed up. Our friend, Linda Romine, had been trying to get us to attend for the last few years, and it turned out to be just as incredible as she'd promised.

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