I was peacefully minding my own business, walking on the Tandy Highway, having a pleasant conversation with myself, when suddenly I realized I was about to step on one of the descendants of Eve's Garden of Eden tempters.
By the time I got my camera turned on the snake was in high speed slither mode, but I was able to get one picture before the reptilian monster disappeared into the brush.
Snakes can slither surprisingly fast when motivated and the temperature is warm enough for their cold blood to flow. Today it was around 80 degrees when I almost stepped on a snake. I guess that is a warm enough temperature to allow fast acceleration.
I am not a snake fan. I find them very unnatural and have always wondered what in the world Mother Nature was thinking when She created them.
Western Washington, where I lived the majority of my time on earth, has no poisonous snakes, naturally occurring. But, there are plenty of garter snakes. Garter snakes can get quite big. Eastern Washington has rattlesnakes, but the Cascade Mountain Range has always kept them on the east side of the mountains.
When I first moved to Texas the fear of snake encounters was probably my #1 concern. Fear of redneck encounters was probably my #2 concern. Both these fears proved to be unwarranted.
I've only had myself a few poisonous snake encounters, one big rattlesnake, a couple copperheads, a couple cottonmouths. That's all.
As for redneck encounters. Gar the Texan has been the worst of that type thing I've encountered. And even that really was not as bad as I feared and easily made harmless by giving him beer.
2 comments:
They do have rattlers along the Cascade Crest Trail, or so I was told. The closest I actually came to seeing one was at the Washington Serpentarium in Sultan, which later moved just east of Monroe. Home of the Reptile Man!
Rattlers on the west side of the Cascade Crest Trail? I saw a little rattler once on Purple Pass by Stehekin. But, that's on the east side of the mountains. Only other rattler encounter in Washington, other than the zoo, for me, was at Sun Lakes, on the jeep road to Dry Falls. I was a kid and it was scary.
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