re: Tell me your Cicada stories...

Up here in NEOhio...i've only ever experienced a few here, a few there. Kind of loud but no big deal. Collect the shells off of the trees when we find them with the kids...

Then one early summer we took the kids to go visit family in Florida...
About 10-20 miles from the Ohio river, i started hitting cicadas off of my windshield. A lot. Pulled into the next rest area and the sound from the cicadas was deafening.

Mu son and I walked up to a small tree. there were thousands on just this one tree. covering all of the leaves, all over the trunk ect.. a pile of shells that looked like thick mulch around the bottom of the small tree,.
Every tree in that rest stop was covered in the same way.

Get back in the van, cross the river, 10-20 more miles for lunch.
Stopped in a small torn in WV, and the noise was still there...Had to yell to hear what anybody was saying.

Next stop was across the mountains into Virginia and they were left behind...

Have never experienced that before and came away very impressed...