Rattlesnake!

Some friends and I decided to go hiking last night while the girls were at soccer practice. We left around 6:15 figuring we had plenty of time to get back before it got dark. We had the best time talking and laughing, but all that talking must have really slowed us down because before we knew it...it was dark and we still had a long way to go. Worried about coyotes we decided we'd better double time it down. Not an easy task on a rocky mountain trail in the dark. Since we didn't plan on still being on the mountain after dark we didn't have a flashlight...just Betty Jo's little cell phone for light. Luckily the moon was pretty full so we were able to see the trail well enough. What we didn't see was the huge rattlesnake in the middle of the trail until we were right up on it. Betty Jo was in the lead, followed by Deb with me bringing up the rear. All of a sudden Betty Jo stopped dead in the middle of the trail. We looked over and saw a huge rattlesnake about a foot away angrily shaking his rattle at us. Very carefully we backed up down the trail and then, I'm not gonna lie, we started to freak out a little. The snake was blocking the path and our way out. We could see the lights of the soccer field, but we were still about a quarter of a mile away and we could still hear that rattlesnake ahead on the path. There was no way we could go back up the mountain and down the other side in the dark and there was no way to cut through. By that time it was 8:15 and practice was over. We decided we'd better call Ryan to let him know we were ok, but that we had a slight problem. (More like a BIG HUGE SNAKE problem!!!) We got no sympathy from him just a lecture about the dangers of hiking on a mountain in the dark. Obviously no knight in shining armor was going to come rescue us so we did the only thing 3 grown women stuck in the dark on a mountain with an angry rattlesnake could do. We started throwing rocks. Big rocks, little rocks anything we could find to try and scare the snake away. Because it was so dark we had no idea if the snake had friends but we had to get off that mountain. After a few minutes we got quiet and listened for the snake. Betty Jo thought she heard it up the mountain, but it was so dark we couldn't be sure...we just knew that we were going to have to make a break for it. We gathered up a handful of rocks and started running throwing the rocks willy nilly as we went. Did I mention we were screaming like a bunch of little girls? We figured the more noise we made the better. We finally got in sight of the soccer field and stopped to catch our breath. We were excited to see the girls at the edge of the field yelling and waving at us. We thought they must have been so worried about us...but when we got closer we realized that they weren't yelling because they were relieved we were safe...they were yelling..."Can we go to Yogurtology?" Seriously...we could have died on that mountain and all they could think about was getting frozen yogurt?! Then to add insult to injury right when we got to the end of the path Kayla and Marisa decided to jump out from behind some bushes and scare 6 more years off our lives. What a crazy night it was! Deb and I decided to celebrate our narrow escape from the jaws of a huge Rattler with dinner at Chipotle! I will use any excuse to go to Chipotle.