Entry 12 – October 18, 2012
I'm pretty happy with the way the day turned out. Nothing strange or intense happened. It was rather calm. I went walking through the woods today, trying to find a sunny spot that the creature might hang around during the day. The night before, I searched through my closet, looking for some hiking gear. I think I went a bit overboard though. I was wearing almost all woodland camouflage, except for my boots. This morning it rained, so I thought that would help me spot any irregular tracks. I tried to think of an area that I could go to begin my search. I decided to start at a power line clearing. It was only a five minute walk from my backyard. This clearing stretches out for miles, at least lengthwise. The width is about 50-60 yards, but I'm not sure if that's a good approximation. I walked down a trail to get to the clearing. I've been there many times before. It's been a place I would go to explore with my friends when we were younger. I wasn't sure how far I should search around this area. There are two "sides" of my part of the clearing. To the left is flat land and the right side has a giant hill. I searched the left side first. I went a bit slow, examining the ground as I went along. I tried to look out for any more scales or tracks from the creature. The tracks would be easy to distinguish from any other wildlife that resides around here. After 15-20 minutes of searching, I decided to check out the right side. It was a bit harder to perform this search while climbing the hill, especially while it was muddy. I went all along the hill, carefully watching my steps. I slipped a few times on the hill. Good thing I was wearing gloves. After finding nothing at the base or on the side of the hill, I went to the top of it. The view from the hill is pretty cool. You can see the clearing go out almost forever. At least, it seems like that. I proceeded to look around. Another 15-20 minutes of careful searching goes by, nothing is found. I almost called it a day, but then I went a bit farther to the other side of the hill and found a bunch of large boulders. For some reason, I thought I would find something here. It just looked like a place a reptile would want to rest. I searched around these boulders and sure enough, I found two more scales. I was really excited that my efforts hadn't gone unrewarded. The problem was, in all the excitement, I never checked for any footprints. I guess having an idea where this creature is during the day is a good enough reward for one day. This probably means I'll have to go back there soon. Maybe not tomorrow, but sometime soon. I'm sorta debating whether pursuing it during the day is a good idea. It should be no different in the day than in the night. Right? I guess I'll find that out eventually.