About 23 years ago when my work life was surrounded by cubical walls, one of my work friends wanted to go on a local backpack with my wife and I. So her, her husband, Patty, and myself went on an over night in Mason Valley on the backside of Palomar Mountain in San Diego County. If you know anything about hiking in San Diego, you know this is best as a March or April trek; lots of water and the flowers are popping. Mason Valley itself is only a little over 2000 ft elevation, but because of it's proximity to Palomar it gets very cold at night.

The hike up is under a beautiful clear sky and we arrive early enough to explore the canyon down stream from our camp site. There is lots of deer sign around, and we follow a deer trail for much of the way to get to the water fall and pools further down stream. Now, I've gone into the bush, come back out and spent 20 min just looking for ticks on my body; I think my record is 8. Pretty gross, but you just got to do it if there are a lot of deer around. So anyway, we go through this one section and I'm thinking I've GOT to have ticks after that and start looking on myself and Patty. When our 2 friends show up, immediately they ask what the heck we are doing with very disturbed looks on both their faces. "Oh, you need to inspect yourself for ticks", I answer. They both commence to yelling, jumping, and tearing each others clothes off frantically. I know they were freaked out, but I couldn't help but laugh my ass off.

For me the pattern is first behind the ears and comb out the hair, then around the neck (shirt line), off with the shirt and along the top of the pants, and lets just say continue on down with emphases on nooks and cranneys. So ... work from the top on down. Oh yea, this is all while you are not standing in the bushes. I do it automatically now immediately after going through deer trails in the warmer periods of Spring, Summer, and Fall.

I have to say Tica is easy to check for ticks; that dog has very short hair and no undercoat at all. She is like a leggy chiuaua.