Tick, Tick, Tick...

​From amazing wildlife to 300+ days of sunshine each year to stunning fall colors, the Colorado outdoors offers some pretty amazing stuff. But we also have to keep on our toes around here. Though sometimes I’m lying down outside and turns out that’s risky business.

​Case in point: I recently purchased an A-frame camper (very exciting!). And with a slew of camping reservations set up for the season, including a few adventures for longer than a weekend, I decided to test it out to make sure all was hunky-dory with said camper. So I ventured east to Jackson Lake State Park for the weekend. Lovely spot, minus the quarter-sized hail Saturday night that I thought might come through the roof. Happy to report that A-frame passed the heavy hail and high winds test.

​​Throughout the weekend I wandered around with my zoom lens, and on Saturday afternoon I spotted a very cool snake in the grass near the lake. In fact, it was my first-ever sighting of a Western Yellow-Bellied Racer. Woot!! So I dropped down on my belly to photograph the little beauty as it slithered along through the grass. 

​Later, hunkered down in my camper as the storm was brewing to the west, I spotted a little creeper on my pant leg, which—living in Colorado—I’m all too familiar with. The pesky Rocky Mountain Wood Tick. Through the course of the weekend, I found 8 more in my camper, on my clothes and on me. Sigh.

​Then days later, back in Fort Collins where I work as a content marketing strategist, I was sitting at my laptop in a Zoom meeting and felt something in my hair. Pulled it out and…another Wood Tick (actual photo at left). At which time I uttered a potty word cuz I thought I was done with the tick shenanigans. And no, I did not in fact have my microphone muted.

But whatever about all of that. Because...cool snake photo op!!!