A walk in the woods......with snakes

A couple days ago my friend Tony called me and asked if I could help him out by taking some pictures of waterfall canyon for him.
He picked me up from work in his stick car (if you want in on the joke check it out here) and we went on our merry way.

The walk up the canyon was pretty uneventful. Tony had a cheerful conversation with himself while I wheezed and puffed my way up the hill.

As I walked, I thought about my favorite travel author Bill Bryson. He too had taken a similar hike. Well not exactly similar because he had hiked half of the Appalachian trail whereas I was taking a dinky 10 min walk up the canyon but still. I felt we were in a similar situation. 

'Finally with a weary puff, you roll over, unhook yourself from your pack, struggle to your feet, and realize -- again in a remote, light-headed, curiously not-there way -- that the view is sensational: a homeless vista of wooded mountains, unmarked by human hand, marching off in every direction. This really could be heaven. It's splendid, no question, but the thought you cannot escape is that you have to walk this view, and this is the barest fraction of what you will traverse before you've finished.'(36)  

a WALK in the WOODS

I couldn't have said it better myself Bill, I couldn't have said it better myself. 

After we reached the area where Tony wanted to take pictures, I dropped my gear and got to work. Basically Tony just wanted a couple nature shots for a brochure he had to make for class.

Me: So want kind of pictures do you want? Classic nature pictures or me pictures?

Tony: What's 'me' pictures?

Me: Me being creative and doing whatever the heck I want.

Tony: .... let's go for that one.

Tony's a good sport.

When I was finished, we headed out. Poor Tony had to endure the humiliation of not just carrying my camera bag, but also carrying my purse. Like I said he was a good sport. I promise I'm not normally this wimpy. It's only because I hadn't had a chance to eat lunch that day because work was crazy so I was running on empty.

Half way down the trail we encountered this guy in the picture below. We wouldn't have seen him if it weren't for Tony's x-ray vision. I was oblivious to everything except for the mirages of food in the distance. For those of you who can't tell, this is a baby rattlesnake. They're unfortunately the most dangerous because they don't control their venom yet. So if they strike something they pump all their venom into their victim rather than just a little bit.

Needless to say I was terrified and Tony thought it was adorable. I refused to move from the big rock I was standing on until it had slithered off into the bushes and I couldn't see it or hear it anymore.

We made it down without another encounter, but you can bet my eyes were glued to the trail the whole time. Moral of the story is snakes are icky.

A classic fair with classic cars

I love fairs and this weekend I was able to enjoy a fun filled day at the Peach day celebration. They had rides, booths and of course blocks and blocks of classic cars. Before the fair opened up, a parade strolled down Main St.

 

 Anybody know what's missing here? No candy is being thrown. It was very disappointing.

My parents met up with me later on after the parade and after strolling around the rides for a little while and scaring my little niece to death, (the noises from the rides were too much for her) we decided to let my dad (and mum) indulge in some automotive eye candy.

Anybody else remember the part in Charlotte's Web when the rat is running around the fair at night singing about how great it is to eat the garbage?

Anybody?...........

No?

 Kristina does a lot of things on her own. Posing in front of cars is one of them.

 I love the little yellow mini.

 The middle is a picture of Kristina trespassing in someone's motor trailer that was on display. Like I said, she does things on her own.

Eventually dad decided that he'd had enough of Kristina's shenanigans so he put her on his shoulders. A few mins later mum and I heard dad telling Kristina to knock it off and we looked over and saw that Kristina had managed to ruffle dad's hair to the point where it was sticking straight up. I apologize for no picture. I was laughing too hard. 

ps. after I finished writing this blog and had P proofread it for me, I started singing the song that the rat sings while eating the garbage from the fair and P leaned over and said, did you look up the lyrics? No P I have them memorized still, how sad is that!?