Today we are going to take a brief respite from the narration of our experience in “sin city”.

We are taking a break because, last night,  instead of working on the Las Vegas posts, we decided to go for a hike.  The hike itself was fairly uneventful, except that for the entire way up the mountain it was pouring down rain.  It was really no big deal,  our camera bag has all-weather cover, but we were pretty soaked.

Despite the rain, it was perfect timing for a hike up blueberry trail, the wild blueberries were ripe, and after it stopped raining  a beautiful mountain haze developed.  A view and a snack, can’t beat that!

I will post pictures of the mountain soon.

Until then, I wanted to show you the most interesting thing we saw during our hike:

A red-spotted newt eating an earthworm! Bizarre, huh?

This newt is in the juvenile stage of life, during which they primarily live on land, and are bright orange (with red spots, obviously).  The color is to warn predators of their toxic skin.

You can’t tell in these photographs, but he was actually slowly swallowing the worm whole!

PS- I do realize that a newt is not a reptile; perhaps one day I will create a tab for amphibians. Thanks!

There is more about Blueberry Trail, here.