Bugs and snakes

We decided to go for a peaceful hike near our hotel in Waycross Georgia (part way between Hilton Head and Florida and just north of the Okefenokee Swamp). I enjoyed being out of the car and looked forward to seeing some wildlife. As you can see, the bugs were horrible. We actually broke into a run at times to out run them but that didn't really work. Poor Griffin ended up with welts on his neck. I guess they like our sweet northern blood!

To add to the adventure, we came across a 4 foot timber rattler snake in the trail. Ruby thought it was a long piece of poop. You can't really see from this photo how vicious he really was.  Luckily Jason spotted it just as it was coiling up and getting ready to strike us (not really but it was trying to scare us). Well, we couldn't go over him, couldn't go around him, couldn't go under him soooo we had to turn around and try to outrun the bugs back to our car. 

Peaceful....