SNAKES!!!

Alright folks, if you don't know the one thing that scares the living crap out of me then you don't know me at all. I HATE SNAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They're icky, awful, slithery and just down right evil. I firmly believe that God didn't give these nasty creatures legs for a reason. And don't forget the whole devil shows himself to Eve in the form of a snake issue! UGH! Come on - these things are just bad news! My best friend lost her snake in her house one time and I wouldn't go over until they found it.... and I REALLY love my best friend.

Yet another reason I LOVED Hawaii - they don't have snakes. Not a one, and IF one does happen to sneak in on a plane or something it's BIG news!

The first week we got to Cali Kevin and I were driving around routing running paths. We've had the "snakes are all over California" talk but he, his dad and his best friend all tell me they have NEVER seen one inside Riverside.... Boy am I lucky cause guess what was smack dab in the middle of the stinking road?! Yea- you guessed it, a snake! So I take a deep breath and tell him to turn around so I can go back and face my fear... through a car window, but still facing it. I figured that the more I saw one in real life the more comfortable I would be eventually. And we also thought it was dead.... we thought wrong... as we were coming up to it from the other side of the road a Ford Expedition runs right over it!!! The snake does this psychotic electricution dance about 10 feet in the air AND THEN SLITHERS AWAY AT THE SPEED OF LIGHTNING!! O-M-G! I'm officially terrified, I scream and actually shed a couple of tears. So as of yesterday we had been aproximately 57 days without incident....

When I headed out for my tempo run tonight I had NO CLUE what I was in for. My run was great, I planned 4 miles and I wanted to keep my middle 2 under 9:00 I had just finished my 2nd and was cruising along when I spotted something weird ahead on the dirt beside the sidewalk. I kept thinking to myself - Self, that's not a snake, you're just freaking out. It's probably just a hose or someones trash whatever... - NOPE! Not a hose, not trash, it was A FREEEEEEEAKING SNAKE! My tempo run quickly turned into my "Sprint my @$$ home as fast as I can" run. I booked it home by a short cut only to have Kevin laughing at me when I told him about my misadventure! *sigh*

Only tomorrow will tell if I change my running route... I really like my new running route, it just flows.... but I'm just not sure I'm ready for my next snake encounter anytime soon. :(