Your observations are correct! Ticks and tick borne infections are sharply on the rise.
Birds have been helping too, by spreading infected deer ticks all over the nation.
I am NOT an outdoors type, so imagine my shock when I realized I'd driven 350 miles with a deer tick in each ankle after a short period outdoors!
I took a close up pic and then blogged everything I'd learned on
www.tickedoffliterally.blogspot.com because I could hardly believe how much I DIDN"T KNOW about ticks/lyme disease/health insurance if you DO get sick, and what to expect from a doctor if you go in and say you're concerned after having multiple ticks removed.
By the way, You WON'T feel them walking on you, or biting (numbing agents in their mouths).
Please all, use permethrin (in camping stores) and extreme caution and stay safe this summer. How I wish I'd understood all this before.
P.S. the very scientists that made the current (short term, weak and cheap) approaches to treatment wrote the very opposite in earlier medical journals. It was only after they got involved financially in health insurance profits that the very same scientists changed their tune. It's on signature 179 by Joy R. Walker...on the "Lyme Fraud Against Humanity Petition".
In summary, prevention is your best bet for more reasons than most of us realize.