Oregon Trail and Other Things

I played Oregon Trail by myself for the first time tonight. I killed everyone except myself off very quickly...we made it just past the Great Salt Lake. : ( I was snake bit, but didn't die. : )

Today, IRL, we really *did* have run-ins with snakes. We went out picking up trash again, and the road we took was next to the river, which was flooding since it's been raining so much lately. (Not really too bad, just about 5 ft. over the banks, and only over the road in one place. Daddy saw a couple boys come across it, so he knew he could make it, but it scared Anna, so she and I walked way around it, on the bank.) Anyway, Daddy parked the van, and walked back to meet Anna and I on the other side, and Emma had been with him and walked back, too, and we were messing about, and I went to spear a piece of trash...and there, right in the water's edge was a snake! My spear was only about two inches from it! It started swimming away (can't say I blame it) and I started screaming, and the girls came back from the van where they had just been about to get in. The snake came back up onto a log, and they all got a good look at it. : P Anyway, Daddy beat us back to the van, because we were talking over the snake, and lo and behold....there was one right outside the side door of the van! Either it had just recently come up, or Emma had stepped right over it when she got out! AND the girls had just been going back to get in when I saw the other one! We stayed close to the middle of the road after that...and poked with sticks before getting near edges. Gives me chills just thinking about them. And I'll bet I'll have nightmares tonight.

After that we went on down the road and took a little off-shoot road that Daddy and I both knew to be a dead-end, but we didn't know what was at the end of it, so we went up and besides the water tower (who knew? lol) was an old graveyard. Part was fenced....about 5 graves, but there were probably 20 unfenced, and lots were the really old ones, with just stones for markers. We read the readable ones, until Oscar peed on one and knocked another one over. Then we left. : (

We picked up a bit more trash, and saw 10 Canada geese swimming in the river...oh, and on the other side we saw two (not at the same place) blue herons! They're SO cool. When I was a kid I had no idea blue herons would live around here. Last year, I believe, there was even a nesting batch of them. They're amazing. : )