On Sunday morning, after breakfast at the Southern Kitchen in New Market, Mary and I made a stop by the Storybook Trail in the George Washington National Forest - we often do for the short little walk after enjoying the terrific fare over at the little diner.
There are touches of color up and down the mountains surrounding our Valley. The forecast for fall color, according to some, is that this won't be a great year for leaf color, but we found enough to enjoy there in the morning sunlight.
And one other thing - there was a little copperhead on the trail as we were walking back. Why it was still out on the path when we got there, who knows, since a large family group had come through with kids racing ahead, yelling and laughing - should have been enough to chase this little guy off. But no, Mary spotted it with her eagly snake detecting prowess and kept me from stepping on it.
It was clearly a hatchling from this year, and wasn't as big as the juvenile black rat snakes we sometimes encounter at the Hawksbill Cabin. I tried to get a photo, following its movement off into the brush - but the phone cam just couldn't capture the moment for us.
It was our first encounter with a venomous snake in the Valley. Back to fall color now:
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