Tracking Helaine

I am looking forward to seeing her, but not her reaction to the snow she’ll be seeing!

I’m on FlightAware tracking Helaine’s flight across the country. She’s just left Colorado and now over Kansas.

This is how Thomas Jefferson followed Lewis and Clark, right?

I am looking forward to seeing her, but not her reaction to the snow she’ll be seeing!

Snakes On A Trail

I don’t know what kind it is–piranha or python probably. Maybe a poisonous mamba snake? Whatever it was, it’s foreign to this city boy.

sleeping-giant-snake-2.jpgI have become fairly dedicated on our every-other-day jaunts up Sleeping Giant. No time to stop–the watch is ticking and I’m watching it. Faster. Gotta go faster.

With that in mind, we stopped in mid-walk today. A snake was crossing the trail. I don’t know what kind it is–piranha or python probably. Maybe a poisonous mamba snake? Whatever it was, it’s foreign to this city boy.

We stopped and looked down. I took out my cellphone and snapped a few shots with its camera. Lewis and Clark should have had one of these!

sleeping-giant-snake-1.jpg“Is it alive,” Helaine asked before gently nudging it with her sneaker? The snake was literally scared stiff. He wasn’t moving just then.

There has been a lot of animal activity near the trail recently. Carmine, our name for all chipmunks, has been seen everywhere. There are more varieties of birds chirping away–or so it sounds to me.

I’m way out of my element. Is this what happens as fall approaches?

“Look, there’s Jack Hanna,” Helaine said as an unknown critter noisily shuffled through some dry brush near us. The woods are not quiet.

The skies are blue. The air is cooler. The snakes are out.