Gorgeous Garters!

By the way, what sort of Garter would have been likely to be found in the general vicinity of Big Sur, back in the early 1960s? The way I remember the appearance of that snake; s/he was very dark (nearly black) with a very yellow dorsal stripe and a yellow lateral stripe on each side, without any checkers, spots, or red. My Mom caught it in my butterfly net. (At the time, my Mom was younger than I am now.) That was my introduction to Garter snakes, and snakes in general.

Snakey Lakey