‘Tick Magnet’

Tick on my fingernail, originally uploaded by treknpaddle.

That was my trail name on the AT. I hiked about 275 miles of the southernmost portion of the AT in the summer of 2002. Oddly, I never get ticks. I had my first tick (that I’d ever found, I should add) a couple of weeks before I went out on the trail, and the name stuck. Later, I would be known at the French Broad River, the Chattooga River, and the Ocoee as ‘Jon the Vegan’, ‘Vegan Jon’, and ‘Vegan.’ Yeah, there aren’t a whole lot of vegan raft guides in Western North Carolina and even fewer in northern Georgia…

I found this little guy on my hand while running drills in a class in Western Mass this past weekend. He’s mostly a harmless little bloodsucker/septic tank, and I can’t say I wanted any part of him, but I did have the presence of mind to whip out the camera and get a couple of good shots before getting rid of him.