I wanted to hike to an area with a vista where we could hang our hammocks and relax for the afternoon with a view. John wanted to return to a vista we had been to in the past but he couldn’t remember exactly where it was so we made our best guess. Our best wasn’t good enough. We did not find the vista we were looking for, in fact we didn’t find any vista. So we settled for a grove of pine trees and setup our camp.
The section we hiked was a bit over grown and the raspberry bushes (thorny!) were scratching our legs. Then we came to a section of the trail covered with Stinging Nettle. In long pants this would not have been an issue. (remember that hiking rule?) There was a lot of “Ouch!”, “Oooo!”, “@!#$%” and squealing (from John, of course) echoing through the forest as we made our way through the nettle. In some sections the nettle was higher than my waist. John tried using his machete to cut it down, but it started flying around and stinging his hands and arms. Yeah, Mother Nature learned us our lesson well. And we were going to have to make our way back through it on the way home.
We have these Off! mosquito things that have the fan that blows the “stuff” around. You’ve seen them right? Well they work great for just sitting around so I wanted to try them out in the woods. Well I forgot to pack the repellent packs. Too bad too. John fell asleep in his hammock with his knee and hand touching the netting on his hammock and got all bit up. He was not happy.
The highlight of the trip was when we were driving out; we saw a nice size rattle snake on the side of the road. We were both impressed with its dark coloring. John got out to take a picture of it, while I kept a close eye. It seemed relaxed and did not seem to care that we were there. Then John just had to do it; he took a couple of steps closer towards it, and it curled up and started rattling and carrying on. I’m saying to John that there is no reason to make it mad, and his comment: “I wanted a better picture is all.” Photographers, some times I just don’t understand them.
