I am not Steve Irwin

The family and I have returned from our annual trip to Arizona. This one was a bit more eventful than trips past in that I nearly stepped on a rattlesnake that was sunning itself in the middle of the path we were hiking on.

We had been on this trail before in years past, but there were no other hikers that day, I reckon because it was cold for AZ (we Minnesotans were wearing shorts; my mother had on a sweatshirt). I suppose the cold temperature and lack of the usual people tromping about were what drew the snake out. I had just taken a picture of my boys who had run ahead of us to look at the pictures on a plaque, vaguely wondering if it was a good idea to let them run like that (mostly worried about the steep fall off the mountain, not even thinking about what they might step on), but mostly fussing with the settings on the camera when I saw the weirdest-looking brownish gray rock. The rock twitched and I jumped back with a shriek even before it got its rattle going.

In retrospect it seems I stood there forever looking at that "weird rock", contemplating it. It seems stupid of me now, there was nothing very rock-like about it and everything snake-like. I'm sure it was only a split second at the time and my memory is warped by the subsequent adrenal surge. The next few seconds are all a blur. I think a teleported several feet back, I don't remember the jumping part. I remember regretting screaming because of course both boys came back to see what Mom was going on about. Luckily the snake had already had enough of us loud people and was retreating back into the densest patch of prickly pear I've ever seen.

Quin snapped me out of my daze by insisting I take a picture of the snake then asking for the camera. He decided not to follow the rattler, since that patch of prickly pear could be a snake condo for all we knew.

The rest of the trip was spent with my mother retelling this story to Arizona residents, all of whom came back with, "I've been living in Arizona for ___ years and I've never seen a rattlesnake!" My husband was also excited; seening a rattlesnake in the wild had apparently been on his list of things to do while we were in Arizona. My other favorite line was, "Well, you know rattlesnakes have a bad reputation, but they won't bother you if you don't bother them." Which is all well and good but I think stepping on a rattlesnake falls under the heading of "bothered".

So I still prefer living in Minnesota, even if it snows in May.