Close encounters of the slithery kind.

I went for a run this afternoon, on the back trails of Cochran Shoals. I like to go into the woods, instead of staying along the main path, which is wide and gravely and often full of people. It reminds me of playing in our woodsy backyard, growing up in Louisiana, but with even more space and less siblings. I get to run through mud and jump over logs and, in this case, go off the path and climb down into a creek that flows into the Hooch, and pretend that I look like a capable explorer. I was making my way down the creek, hopping from rock to rock, when I climbed onto a fallen tree. Suddenly a flash of movement caught my eye- it was a snake dropping from another branch into the water. I've never seen that before, but it startled me. I looked around to make sure there were no other snakes I was in immediate danger of stepping on and started to move toward the trail. I have heard so many stories about how cottonmouths get angry and will come after you if you surprise them, and since I didn't know what snake I had startled, I looked down into the water for it again. We made eye contact and it went gyrating downstream and I went crashing through leaves and branches to get back to the path. I just looked it up, and I think I found a brown water snake- not a water moccasin, not venemous, but still not something I want to get real cuddly with.

About twenty minutes later, on my way back along the main path, I saw a gleaming black snake slithering toward the woods, away from one of the rectangular bench/planters that can be found along the path. I approached it, because I wanted to know what kind of snake it was. And because I am an idiot. It wasn't in a huge hurry, but it was making good time for the brush, and I gave it a lot of space. I figured it was a black rat snake (which with I've already had a close encounter) but I think now it was a black racer.

I've never seen snakes down there before; I knew they were there, but this was so surprising to actually see, particularly on the main path, since there is so much foot traffic there in late afternoon and early evening.