Edward Abbey documents his story on being a park ranger at a nature preserve in Utah. The one thing that caught my eye in this reading was how he describes the park and the two "dancing" snakes. He says that the April mornings are bright, clear and calm, which contradicts the meaning behind the animals he describes in the story. I just get this vision of a whimsical, peaceful, dusty, early morning land filled with animals just doing and living as they please. He then goes into how hes watching the snakes wind and unwind from each other not knowing what their intentions really were.
I'm not to sure what this has to do with the nature of our course but in a sense the animals are representing the people (the hippies) of that time and they are just living life as if no one else is watching. The imagery that Abbey portrays signifies what we see in pictures from the '60's. Bright blue skies, a bright sun, calming winds all of which are peaceful and in term of counter culture, signify peace itself.