Canada Part 16: The Rattlesnakes

You know, it's always important when starting a hike to read the signs about potential dangers. Or...if you are like me, you can just take a picture and plan on reading it later. I'm not sure why I took this picture, but it was before our hike started and before I knew that I should have read the warnings.

So we start on our hike and are enjoying the scenery of Writing On Stone. We're headed to the Battle Scene - a petroglyph dated to sometime in the late 1800s. It's supposedly one of the most detailed petroglyphs in the area.

Clark, Cameron and Cam all ran up ahead to the Battle Scene. The older boys have a hard time staying behind and walking with the whole group. Maybe Kent is too slow.

The rest of us are hiking in a line: me, Kent, Jason and Wendy. We were talking and not really paying attention when all of a sudden I notice that I am about to STEP ON A RATTLESNAKE! If you notice the sign at the beginning of the hike it tells you to stand still, back slowly away and let it escape. Obviously I didn't read that sign or it didn't matter if I did...I screamed, jumped and ran away and left my little two year old son behind to be devoured by a rattlesnake. Worst mother of the year award...right here. I'm so glad Jason was there to scoop Kent up and bring him to me. The rattlesnake was pretty big - about 2" in diameter and probably 3 feet long. And he was mad. After Kent was "safe" with me, Jason grabbed my camera and ran back to get some pictures of my tormentor. Now...I'm a scrapbooker...and I take a lot of pictures...but I didn't see one good thing that would come from these pictures. I just wanted to be OUT OF THERE. After I calmed down a little and Jason was done with the pictures, we decided that we had to keep walking. We had to tell Cam and the older boys to be very careful since we just ran into a rattlesnake. Oh how awful.

We finally reached the Battle Scene. This is what it is supposed to look like.

You can make it out just barely in the photo below. But who really cares about a stupid petroglyph. I just wanted to get out of those stupid hoodoos and be away from those stupid rattlesnakes. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Cameron and Clark were VERY bummed that they didn't see the rattlesnake. On our way back, we all kept having to yell at the boys because they were goofing off too much and I was just overly sensitive. Then it happened again.

I heard the buzz. I yelled, "Clark, I just heard another one. Get back on the path."

Jason flips around and asks where I heard it. I pointed in the direction of that evil buzz and sure enough they found another rattlesnake hidden in the rocks. This one was a bit smaller than #1. Clark kept everyone a safe distance but was able to show everyone the rattlesnake. You can see how excited Clark was to see the snake. I was still uncomfortable. The snake was still buzzing, so I didn't want anyone to go near it. But of course, Jason wants more pictures.

Apparently it was on his bucket list to see a rattlesnake in the wild. So glad I could help him with that. We joked about how Grandpa Dlouhy would have loved it. I thought to myself that the next time Grandpa Dlouhy wants to go hiking with us...he should "walk" with someone else.

Oh I never want to go back...