We then drove over to the Spring Creek Trail, the forested creek bottom with sidewalks through it. The sidewalks were filled with branch material from the severe thunderstorm which started our day, but the sun was beaming down through blue skies. We wandered for eighty minutes there, attracting inch-worms onto our shirts, because they hovered in mid-air from inchworm-threads and caught onto us as we hiked. We saw four monarch butterflies, which fly fearlessly because they know they are not tasty for birds. I like that story about the slightly smaller viceroy butterfly. They look like monarchs, but they actually are quite tasty for birds. The birds ignore them because of mimickry. I cannot trace the symbol to a noble conclusion in my mind, but sometimes I wish I were a viceroy butterfly. We saw a green beetle-like bug that was just gorgeous. At one bridge, a man signaled for us to stop. Sure enough, there was a little three foot non-poisonous snake threading the spaces in the metal bridge wall. I think he was a king snake, but I'm not sure. He was cool to watch, slithering between the spaces, until he went away.
As we passed Green Park, a quarter mile from my home, large, attractive plastic kites flew. The wind here is steady, but not unpleasant. Today, everything is steady, and not unpleasant.
