Wildlife

We've been spending a lot of weekends staying within the four walls of Houston, so this Sunday we took a drive into the countryside. It doesn't take long to escape the city sprawl and find yourself out in the wild. We have a book of hikes around Houston, so we found one and set off. On the way into the Wildlife Reserve, we saw a sign describing the Auto route for the park, allowing you to drive around and see the wild life from the comfort of your car. "Ha", we thought, "what kind of wimp would come to a wild life reserve and stay in the car? We will walk." So we stopped and got out of the car at the location for the start of the hike 1000 mosquito bites later, and a close encounter with an alligator, we were back in the car, swatting mosquitos and swearing never to leave the car again. We did the autoroute, and saw a snake (possibly a cottonmouth, see picture. It stopped on the road and hissed at the car), a woodpecker pecking a fence post, lots of alligators, lots of birds, and best of all, a bobcat. All from the comfort of the car On the way back we stopped at a State Park (NB I may edit this and put the names in - they both began with "B"). This was much more tranquil (we didn't see any of the alligators, or get bitten by any mosquitos, although we did have a narrow escape from a wild boar. This meant Bluet could get out and run around, which made her very happy. She particularly enjoyed picking the wild flowers, and, of course, playing with the gravel.