“This damned traffic isn’t getting any thinner, please, cross me over the road.” — Steve Gibbons

It was about four fingers before dark, with the remains of the day sinking down behind the outline of tall cedars and tamaracks.

Ordinarily, the evening star would be visible off the horizon, but this was the newest black pearl on a long string of cloudy, rainy days and any view of Venus would be blocked by clouds tonight.

On the river that evening, the mosquitoes formed dense, fluttering curtains that stung and itched when you walked through them. It was warm and muggy, and like the mosquitoes, the trout too were biting hard.

A few birds were singing in the trees, most prominently, a gray catbird floating its bubbling, organ-grinding tune over the wet, green grasses from the top of a choke of red-twigged dogwood and alders.

Driving back along a gravelly grade, the dirt was wet, but not muddy.

Though water stood just off the edge of the road in either direction, the deep puddles that typically covered these twisting backroads — like big bowls filled with chocolate milk and rocks — were surprisingly absent tonight.

At the intersection of two country roads, I stopped, seeing a painted turtle standing in the road, facing my direction with its yellow-striped head pulled high and turned out from its shell.

This wasn’t the best place for this creature, I thought.

Or was it?

These cold-blooded turtles, among the most likely to be seen sunning themselves on the logs of quiet lakes and lily pad ponds, leave the water this time of year to lay their eggs in a gravelly place where the sun shines bright — a place just like this intersection.

Though turtles date back 225 million years, all that time has apparently not taught them enough about the dangers of the grinding wheels of pick-up trucks and other modern passenger vehicles.

I was right.

This was an ill-advised and unfortunate place for this turtle to even pause, much less to stop long enough to dig the claws on its hind legs into the gravel to lay eggs.

However, the uneasy feeling I had, realizing what this painted turtle appeared to be planning, began to grow quickly when I looked to my left, about halfway through the sweeping corner.

There, directly in the middle of the road, was the thick upper half of a common snapping turtle sticking up out of the gravel.

Like a pick-up truck with its back end fallen through the lake ice, this much larger turtle — with its strong jaw and dark, gray-green colored head — sat motionless as it deposited its eggs into a hole it had dug through the rocks and dirt.

Unlike the painted turtle, which lays up to 20 elliptical eggs in its nest, snapping turtle eggs are round and can number just under 100 in a single laying.

Michigan is home to 10 species of turtles, and common snapping and painted turtles are found across the state.

Young snapping turtles emerge from nests in 55 to 125 days, leaving only the fragments of white eggshells and a half-excavated hole in the ground.

Painted turtle incubation takes 70 to 80 days. Hatchlings will often stay in the nest until the following spring.

A couple months back, I stopped to take a few photographs at a turtle nest recently abandoned.

That nest too was dug into road gravel that rimmed the edge of a small pond frequented by snapping and painted turtles, a few small brook trout, chubs and thousands of minnows.

Despite their seemingly poor choice of nesting site, vehicles are not the only danger for these turtles. Predators, including raccoons and foxes, are a big concern, with their appetite for turtle eggs — scrambled, poached (pilfered) or sunny side up.

Children like to capture painted turtles for fun or, though not advised, for pets. As for snapping turtles, there’s a whole lot more than one recipe for snapping turtle soup, even this far north of New Orleans where “Caouane” is quite popular indeed.

I parked, got out and approached the snapping turtle, noticing its painted partner had moved farther across the road toward the edge.

Though snapping turtles can be dangerous biters when on land, this one didn’t hiss, snap or anything but sit still, looking straight ahead.

Conflicted, not wanting to disturb her, but worrying about her choice of nest location, I wasn’t sure exactly what to do. I opted to leave wildlife alone in the wild.

I hadn’t seen a car on the roads all night. And anyway, cars or no cars, these fascinating creatures have hung out with the dinosaurs — survived the catastrophe that killed them off — to still be able to crawl out of an Upper Peninsula pond on an early summer night to pick a place to lay its eggs.

In this context, this big scheme of things, what do I know?

Decidedly, not much.

As I continued toward home down the gravel road, I saw another snapping turtle walking under the ox-eye daisies at the side of the road. Then, a couple miles later, I found another moving along the road, near a creek tumbling through a culvert.

Before I hit the blacktop, two cars passed me headed in the opposite direction.

As they moved past me too swiftly to stop to warn, I wondered whether the drivers would see the dark shells of the large turtles in the road and stop.

Or, maybe the egg-laying snapper in the road had covered her eggs with gravel moved on off the road entirely.

I hoped so.

On the highway now, darkness enveloped the sky, though the west still held some fading daylight. I looked again for the evening star. I still couldn’t see it.

The windows down, I rolled toward home trying to blow lingering mosquitoes out of the vehicle, the backs of my hands itching and red.

In the cooler, there were fresh brook trout. Behind me, in the gathering darkness, the unknown fate of the turtles and their eggs. Ahead, the beginnings of another rainy day.

Editor’s note: John Pepin is the deputy public information officer for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.