King Snake?

This guy slithered up along the front walk just as our friends were arriving for dinner. We haven’t seen many snakes around here since we first moved in. We I killed three in the first several months. None was very big. I bludgeoned one to death with my weed bucket (the only implement at hand). I trapped one on the deck by stepping on it (I had on shoes) while one of the kids ran in for a pair of scissors. (I’ll leave the rest to your imagination, but will just mention it was a very tiny snake trying to slither back down between the planks. I assumed it was heading home to its much larger mother and many siblings, and I wanted to send them a message.) I don’t remember how I finished off the third one, but maybe that’s just as well. Supposedly, this species eats other snakes, so that’s a step in the right direction. The boys had hours of fun monitoring that hole and hypothesizing what small rodents might slip into it only to meet their doom.