A word about ticks

This year I've been trying to get back into Mountain Biking. It has been over 5 years since I was really into it. I have a good excuse. 2 years of Physician Assistant school, and 3 years of living outside of the shadows of the everlasting hills. I've been riding about 1-3 times a week for the past month. The biggest problem I've found, besides the lack of riding locations, is ticks.

Of all the bug, I feel the most sorry for the little sons of ticks. So they go to school, with all the other bugs, and on "what does your daddy do day" they have to sit in the back of the room and hope no one calls on them. It is a tough explanation for them.

"Hey you,... son of a tick. What does your daddy do?"

"Nothing..."

"Oh come on now, he must do something. Can he make honey?"

"No."

"Can he fly?"

"No"

"Does he recycle fallen trees?"

"No."

"Can he jump really high?"

"No."

"Does he have any exotic markings?"

"No"

"Can he glow?"

"No."

"Well really, he must do something."

Sullen faced, little son of a tick answers. "He waits for people to walk past, then he grabs onto them. He climbs to their warm parts and then latches onto them and he sucks their blood."

I can imagine the room is pretty quite after that. You have to assume the poor little son of a tick will be referred to the guidance councilor.

But seriously, since getting back into Mountain Biking here in Indiana, there have been a significant number of tick bites. And honestly, I don't mind all of the tick bites. It is the clever little suckers who find the awkward places. Now, I'm not talking about private parts. It is the hard to reach places where they harder to see. Like the area over the shoulder blades, or the backside of the calf, or the outside of the foot or in the hair.

Like today, I got done with a long ride out at New Harmony State Park, (decent trails by the way, but only about 4-5 miles worth. I road each in both directions, good conditions, 99.9% dry) and as is habit, got ready to take a shower. Being splattered with dirt and such it becomes tough to identify a mole versus dirt versus a tick. I found two. But it wasn't until after checking everywhere twice, taking a shower and drying off that I noticed them. One was on the outside of my right foot the other on the back of my calf. It is always a surprise to find them, but not real alarming anymore.

On the times that I've bothered to wear bug spray I haven't had any tick bites. So I suppose the bites I've had are mostly my own fault.

On a medical note, if you do develop any flu like symptoms, unusual joint pain or a target shaped rash after getting a tick bite then go see your friendly neighborhood Physician Assistant.

Love this guy

Waiting for mom outside the grocery store. Somebody woke up, somebody had a camera handy, the rest is cutesville.

My son the meat head

I'm not sure how little boys learn to do this, but I'm guessig it must be from Blue's Clues. It never fails, tell a young 4 or 5 year old boy, "show me your muscles." And there you go, muscles. The real awlkward thing is this particualr young man was caught the other day flexing in front of the mirror.

But the way I figure, he does have a little sister and a little brother to look out for. So, being a little meat head isn't all bad.

Swimming at Scales Lake

As part of our camping trip this weekend, we went swimming at the lake. As far as lakes to swim in, this one isn't so bad. They have plenty of showers, life guards, sand, a diving board and a long water slide.

This was the baby's first time swimming, he spent most of it under an umbrella asleep on the sand.

The pool at the bottom of the slide is about 5.5 feet deep, it is really tough to negotate with a kid on your lap. Renee tried it once and gave up, turing all slide duties over to me. After about the 8th time down the side, the ladder on the side of the pool broke while I was climbing out. They closed the slide to try and fix it, but it was to no avail. I guess it just wasn't build to hold up against my 215 pounds. Next time I hope they build it with titanium.

I'm hoping that pictures like these show up when my children think back on the summer. Sure it is a little blury, but there is sand and water and we're running and the sun is out and life couldn't be better.

Camping at Scales Lake

We decided to take an adventure. We went camping this weekend at Scales Lake, which may not sound like much of an adventure but taking a three month old on a camping trip made it pretty tough. When Renee and I first got married, we went camping all the time. Mostly back packing in the High Uintas, however, since we started having children the camping trips have been few and far between. We took a trip last summer to New Harmony. It was a learning experience. This year, we felt more prepared, but still didn't pull it off quite right. We forgot, pillows, dry firewood and tooth brushes. So we couldn't get the fire to burn for any length of time, had to borrow pillows from our wonderful neighbor and sleep with the taste of bratwurst. Next time we'll be pros.