Today I’m participating in the WordPress weekly photo challenge and this week’s theme is “adventure”. Our adventures this summer kept us close to home. The most adventurous we were was probably the week we spent in the small mountain town of Idyllwild, California. During our visit, we tried a hiking trail new to us called the Ernie Maxwell scenic trail. Scenic is the word because it gave us beautiful views of the mountains and the valleys all around, while hiking mostly in the shade.
Of course we had a lot of other hiking adventures, mostly in the woods so we could hide from the baking hot Southern California summer sun.
And we enjoyed small adventures by the water, such as this lovely pond where we got to see a lot of birds and some fish.
Talking about birds, we spotted this beautiful violet-green swallow (Tachycineta thalassina) outside our cabin window. It had built a nest right underneath so we got to see it fly back and forth a lot over our week’s stay.
And you can’t hike without meeting cottontail rabbits. This one wasn’t too scared of us, as long as we stayed on the other side of the fence.
Finally, our biggest adventure probably happened at home this summer, when this red coachwhip snake visited our backyard for the third year in a row. Its babies may come visit us next year, but this guy won’t, as it met its end getting tangling in our netting (I guess it didn’t learn its lesson from the first two times…). That was enough adventure for one day!
