Sunday, March 18, 2012

Ticks. Thick with Ticks.

I just got back from a little two-day, one-night jaunt up to...let's call it a "major wild area within a good day's ride."  My friend and I peddled, pushed and carried our bikes up an overgrown and flooded (therefore highly entertaining) woods road to a spot where we shouldn't be, stashed our bikes and camping gear, and then spent a day hiking some beautiful unblazed terrain.

What a blast.  We had great weather, by which I mean sun, rain and fog.  And we had...great balls of tickage.  I've never seen so many ticks.  We picked maybe 30 off our clothes (that we saw) and three or four out of our bodies (those that we found, as of now) and discerned three different varieties including the infamous "crawling spec of dirt," also known as the deer tick.

For Pete's sake.  Talk about a dampener on your fun.  Give me rain or wind or mud, any day.  Hoping I don't catch something from the little cesspools of disease.

Now I have to clean and sterilize all my clothes, camping gear and shoes and boots and panniers.  I'm wondering if I don't have to pick over the bikes as well.  What a mess.  (But what good clean fun we otherwise had.)


I Recommend to others who plan to go out this year:
- Permethrin for treating your clothes.
- Deet


Learn more about ticks.  There may be ads on this page for tick resources and there are also some pages here, at the University of Rhode Island TickEncounter Resource Center.

Insect and tick-repelling clothing.

Stay healthy,
Robert
------------
Robert Matson
New York City Recumbent Supply
The Innovation Works, Inc.
copyright 2012 Robert Matson

No comments:

Post a Comment