Colorado National Monument TR (Part III)

Thought I’d add one more blog posting about our trip to the desert last weekend. I don’t know if it was the spring season, or the warm weather, but we saw lots of desert wildlife while on our hikes. On Saturday, we saw rock lizards, desert bunnies, and even a whole flock of Gambel’s Quail (which I couldn’t get a descent photo of).

Sunday was even more exciting for catching crazy wildlife. On our hike out, Mark yelled at me to “Stop!” and then asked me “Is that real?”

“Is what real?” I asked.

“The giant blue lizard sitting on the rock in front of you.”

Giant blue lizard, huh? I thought he was loosing it, or maybe a bit dehydrated. But after scanning the ground for a split second, I saw it too. About 10ft down the trail, was a giant blue and yellow lizard. It looked like a toy, except it was breathing, and it blinked at me. I slowly approached it, taking pictures every 3 or 4 feet, until I was within 2 feet of it, holding my camera out into its face, and still taking pictures. It blinked at me. I walked away, and let Mark walk over and check out the lizard. He never really moved. Just sat there, and looked at us.

We tromped off after this encounter, and not five minutes later, I saw something move on the trail infront of me. This time it was me yelling “Stop!” And Mark simply squeaked a bit and jumped backward. There was a 5ft long bright yellow and brown snake peering out onto the trail. I took a couple of pictures, and again, the thing didn’t move at all. Since it didn’t rattle at me, I figured it wasn’t poisenous, but we didn’t want to get too close. Ever since the sea urchin affair, my motto is strictly “Look don’t touch!”

We threw little rocks at it for about 2 minutes until it finally decided to move off the trail and back into the brush. I guess not all of the excitement from the weekend happened off the ground!