Mountain Menagerie: Bound, Shimmy, Slither

For the Fourth of July weekend, a bunch of us drove up to Schmike's parent's lakehouse in the mountains. On the way up, we saw a deer bounding across the road and then into a meadow! It was one of those rare moments when, instead of catching a fleeting glimpse of a wild animal, we actually got to watch it for a little while. I mean, it was still pretty fleeting, but it was at least 15 or 20 seconds. It was pretty.

Then, about five minutes later, as we were making our way up the mountain, a driver coming hte opposite direction waved at us to stop. He said, "If y'all want to see something reallly cool, stop at the top of this hill and look to your right - there's a baby black bear climbing a tree right there! But be careful, 'cause you know where there's a baby..." and we said, in unison, "There's a Mama!"


Sure enough, as we crested the rise, we saw it, right at eye-level. While we were checking it out though, a car full of Uncle-Sam-hat-wearing 4th of July-ers was trying to get by us, and the road was so narrow that we had to just keep on trucking. So in the span of five minutes in the wild country we had seen a deer and a bear. Naturally, my camera was in my bag in the trunk at the time.

Once we arrived at the lakehouse, there was much drinking and eating and singing songs and dancing dances and swimming and eating and shooting off of fireworks. I did take a few pictures of these things.

Then on the way back, we saw a snake in the road. (camera was in the trunk.)