Almost Skunked in Dalton May 15 2025

Herping near Dalton, GA started with promise, but quickly turned into a lesson in patience.

Right off the bat, we spotted a beautiful garter snake catching the last glimmers of light, its stripes vivid against the road.

This trip was already special—my wife joined me for the first time ever. She’s heard all the stories, seen the photos, and now she was finally in the field beside me. I wanted it to be one of those magical days packed with finds.

But after that garter, everything just… stopped.

We cruised for hours. Flipping, scanning, trying every trick in the book. Silence. No movement. The woods felt empty. It started to feel like one of those days—where the biggest thing you take home is frustration.

Then, a tiny toad appeared, sitting smack in the middle of the road like he owned the place. We gave him a lift to safety, which felt like the only real win of the day.

But a few minutes later, we stumbled across something wild in a much darker way: the most decomposed DOR (dead-on-road) snake I’ve ever seen. Just bones. But what really caught my eye was a hide beetle crawling over the skeletal remains, doing its morbid little job.

We didn’t walk away with a list of species, but I still count it as a win. Garter snake, one heroic toad rescue, a skeletal mystery with its own cleanup crew, and sharing it all with my favorite person? That’s a solid day herping and a lesson in patience.