[at-l] Now I'm Ticked

["Bryan Fakes" <dewman68@hotmail.com>]

I did something yesterday I knew better than to do, and now I need advice.  
Blame it on living and hiking in Upper East Tennessee for six years, but I 
forgot why we don't go hiking in Missouri in August.  I guess I got spoiled, 
having hiked and/or done trail maintenance at least once a week on the AT 
all that time I only ever got one tick and never found chiggers.  Still...

So yesterday I tell my wife I need to go hike for an hour or so, and head 
out to the Green Rocks Trail just outside of St. Louis.  A nice ten mile Boy 
Scout Trail, they use white "AT" blazes to mark the surprisingly hilly 
course through the woods. Five minutes into the trail I walked through some 
shin-high weeds and had a feeling of deja vou.  Ten years ago I also hiked 
in Missouri in the summer... so I look down and I see thousands of tiny 
freckles on my shins, only they're not my freckles because they're racing 
down towards my socks and up past my knees at an alarming rate.  Seed ticks. 
  The things are small as the period at the end of a sentence, and 
tenacious, they can last three years without a meal, just waiting for 
someone to walk by.  This happened to me ten years ago, I guess I blocked it 
out!

So I raced back to the car and got most of the ticks off with my water.  But 
my boots/socks were loaded with them.  When I got home the socks hit the 
washer (Some of the ticks made through two wash cycles, a night-long soak in 
detergent water, and a high heat dry cycle).

So my question is, how do I kill/get rid of the ticks in my boots?  They're 
almost too small to see, but all I have to do is stick my hand in my boot 
and it comes out with several attached.  I'd hate to have to throw out these 
boots over a tick infestation!

Advice appreciated...

Bryan
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