County Hiking Challenge Hike One

So it seems that Mama has a tradition of participating in her county's fall hiking challenge. She says when we finish I'll get the first badge for my backpack.  We went to a trail I'd never hiked before, but Mama had with my predecessor, Merlin. It is a short 1.6 mile hike around and over a creek. Mama chose it because we didn't have a whole lot of time since she had spent most of the day working in her garden instead of paying attention to me.

 Here is the creek

The hike was supposed to start at one parking lot, but when we got there there was a birthday party being held there complete with bouncy house and all the parking spaces were taken, so we went to the next lot and took a side trail to the main trail so we got a little bit more hike in.

Almost immediately after we started hiking three bikes approached us. I was scared but didn't lose it. Then a little later another bike passed us from behind without warning and I did lose it. Then we got passed by that same bike again a short time later and once again after that, but this time the lady on the bike warned us she was coming. Mama thought it must be boring to ride a bike around the same 1.6 mile loop over and over, but she guesses the rider knows exactly how many miles she rode if she does that.  Because I saw the bike so many times I was convinced it was after me and I became very paranoid. If I think bikes are after me I start searching for something high, like a bench, table, wall or stairs that I can climb up on. Mama calls it the Original Dalek Defense. So I found a bench and had a short sit down and ate some treats until I felt more relaxed and we finished our hike.

Collecting myself on a bench

When we were almost at the end of the hike mama spotted something on the trail ahead of us and said, "Ooh look, Zorro. A snake!" I wasn't interested until we were almost to it and it went into the grass. I saw the grass moving and went to investigate and just as I was leaning in to sniff the snake the snake raised its head up. Well that scared me so much I jumped three feet straight up, turned in mid-air and hit the ground running. I ran to the other side of the trail and hid behind Mama who had the nerve to laugh at me. She said it was only a garter snake and was nothing to be afraid of. I didn't think it was nice to laugh at me even if it was a harmless snake.

Miles hiked: 1.9

Bikes seen: 4 (or 6 depending on how you count it)

Total Meltdowns: 1 (or 1.5 if you count needing to sit on something high or 2.5 if you also count freaking out over a garter snake)