Oh Say, Did You See...?

Yep, another possum. This one's a little smaller than the one from Friday. Okay, so that makes two possums and one raccoon in three days. Those little green apples seem to be great bait. Unlike Friday, I wore my hiking boots this time when I took the critter to the forest. I also took my daypack, containing a thermos full of ice, a bottle of PowerAid, a towel, my camera, and my ham radio. Below is Madison Run, where the critters make their new home. I am sure they like it better here than they do in my back yard. I know *I* like them better here than I do in my back yard. A lot better. Click on this picture and look closely at how pretty this area is. After making sure the possum made it safely out, I put the trap back in the car and then hiked up the Madison Run Fire Road, this time unhindered by cute clueless coeds. There were, unfortunately, several other hiking parties on the trail. So, it wasn't the solitude I long for. But hey, I'll take what I can get. The scenery was great, even without the coeds. Normally, the temperature gets cooler as you go up. But this time, it seemed like it was unbearably hot even up at the summit. Overall, I gained just under 1600 feet in vertical elevation. This is the equivalent of walking up the stairs to the top of the Washington Monument -- three times. I covered 9.4 miles (4.7 miles up and 4.7 miles back), plus another quarter-mile each way from the car to the first trail marker. Oh, say, did you see...? There is a lot to see out here -- especially when you walk at a slow easy pace and keep your eyes open. I left the car just before 1:00 in the afternoon and got back about 5 pm. The heat of the day: 95 degrees. There weren't many animals out and about. But I got some good shots of the flora. Click on this picture for the big version. I saw a lot of stuff that the regular hikers never see. For instance, a few of them may have seen the blackberries, but I'll bet they never noticed the colorful leaves of the orenwort in the upper left corner of this shot. Click and see. I had to look hard to see the ripe blueberries. Normally it is illegal to pick plants in a National Park, but it is perfectly legal to pick and eat berries. Sorry, I don't know the names of these wildflowers. Most hikers probably never notice these blossoms, even though they walked right by all of them. I don't know what this called, but it is huge. The flower pod in the middle is about as large as my fist. Click on this photo and take a gander at the stickers and thorns -- this is one plant that doesn't want it's flowers picked. These photos are a lot better if you click on them and look at the colors in the big version. There is always a great variety of bugs out here. Fortunately, most of them are innocuous to humans. Yes, this is a wild flower. I don't know the names of the bugs, either. I thought both these bugs were pollinators, but right after I snapped this shot, the bug on the left walked right over and grabbed the bug on the right, ... and flew off with him! No, this wasn't a honeybee. It's some kind of huge, huge yellow-jacket-type thing. This sucker was almost as big as my thumb. Click on the picture for a close-up. I don't think this is a viceroy, and it sure isn't a monarch. But I'm not sure what it is. Here is a classical honeybee. Click on the picture to see her and the stickers a little better. Yep, horses are allowed on the Madison Run Fire Road. After walking behind the horses for a little ways, I concluded that there is a perfectly good reason why a lot of hikers don't notice the wildflowers by the side of the trail: they are too busy making sure they don't ruin their hiking boots!