A Lone Ranger... And Ticks!

 Parental Unit and I, and our good friend, Catherine, set of early Sunday afternoon for a hike in one of our local metro parks. The day was supposd to be sunny and 80 degrees after a week of rain, so Parental Unit thought, "A perfect time to spend some time outdoors, get some exercise, and relax!"

Now, we weren't exactly going to be gone for days in the wilderness, but Parental Unit nonetheless donned her hiking boots and polarized sunglasses, and packed a large fanny pack (well, she does have a large fanny) with a big bottle of water and ice cubes, my biscuits, tissues, handiwipes, poop bags, and of course, her lipstick. She slathered on SPF 30 and off we went. Catherine is much lower maintenance, so she only packed a large water bottle.

We chose a 2.4 mile trail, and at a bit past the mile point, I started to feel really tired and was panting like crazy! We'd already had two water breaks, but I decided I needed to lie down - in the middle of the trail. Parental Unit carried me over to the shade of a tree, and both she and Catherine gave me all of their 2 big bottles of water. I was starting to feel a bit better, when Parental Unit noticed my paws were covered in what looked like burrs or dirt. But after doing a double take, she saw that I was crawling (and I mean crawling) with ticks! So both Parental Unit and Catherine got down on their hands and knees and pulled off the little blood suckers, along with clumps of my fur! (So much for that flea and tick medicine that Parental Unit had applied to me just a few days prior).

We finally started back with Parental Unit trying to carry me the rest of the way, but that lasted for about two minutes, until she had to stop to rest!
Just then, a park ranger came driving by in one of those little golf cart things, and Parental Untit flagged him down-how embarassing! Keep in mind we were less than a mile from the parking lot!
So the kind ranger drove us all back to our car, and we spent the remainder of the day de-ticking and recovering. So that was our relaxing Sunday, how about you all?

P.S. The ticks are really bad this year, so please be extra careful!

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