sssssurpise on the trail

Okay, here's another sssstory about our trip to Carolina Beach.
The state park there is absolutely wonderful. There are many trails to hike through the woods...short trails, long trails, flat trails, hilly trails. We opted for a short, flat trail that is call the Flytrap Trail. Yep, named after the Venus Flytrap. A fascinating plant, really, and endemic to the area. We did not find any on the trail...they bloom earlier in the summer. We did see some yellow pitcher plants, also, very cool. Here's a picture. Anyway, we walked our little trail and saw huge pine cones, little red flowers, and ...a snake! A jogger passed us and said "Be careful there's an S-N-A-K-E sunning itself on the path." So what do we do? Do we go the other way? No! We go look for it...and by we, I mean Tim, with us following him from a distance. Oh he found it alright. He couldn't really tell what kind of snake it was so, as always, he wanted to pick it up. Don't get me wrong, he knows how to tell the difference between venomous and non but it was a snake he didn't know. When he reached for the tail to pick it up it quickly turned around to strike at him!!! Holy snakebite, Batman! It missed him because he's got good reflexes, but scary none-the-less. Thank goodness I had my camera handy. I mean, what's a scary experience without pictures to prove it?! He did end up picking it up with a long stick so we could get a better look at it. That darn thing hissed, and tried to strike, and acted all crazy like a venomous snake. Well, later, after looking it up, we found out that it was an Eastern Hognose Snake. Feisty little guys that act like their venomous counterparts as part of their defense...had Tim kept messing with it, it would have eventually played dead as a last resort. So what an eventful little walk in the woods we had. We'll be more aware of our surroundings and all of it's potential creatures from now on!

Curled up ready to strike again!

Checking it out from a safe distance.