I know what your thinking, "how did a pine cone save your life?" Well, when I was walking back to our camp site from washing my hands in the small creek located nearby, I kicked a pine cone and it hit a baby rattlesnake! At first, I thought it was gopher snake (they look like the diamondback rattlesnake minus the black and white banding on its tail and has a narrower head), but once the pine cone hit the rattlesnake, it coiled up and started to furiously rattle its tail at me. Luckily I was far enough from the venomous snake that it didn't lunge at me. My friend McKenzie was walking with me and told me to walk slowly backwards away from the snake. She is a rattlesnake expert because where she goes to school and lives, it is known as Rattlesnake Island due to all the rattlesnakes in the area and her school trains the students rattlesnake safety. Instead of walking back slowly, I ended up running away as fast as I could.
So my dear friends, that is how a pine cone saved my life.
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| Here is a photo of a pine cone similar to the one that saved my life (photo taken by my dad) |
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| Here is an image of a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake close to the one I saw (image from wikipedia) |
