Spider Leg

 As a fun family activity we decided to take a quick trip down Devil's Canyon.  Spike ended up driving us to Spider Leg trail.  I had never been to this one and was a little awed by the 'ropes' we had to shinny down.  I was a little worried about getting back out.  This top picture is of Mark and Jacob climbing down.  Mark was such a good helper with his little brother.

 Here they are all fishing.  I am not a fisherman but I very much enjoyed the hike in and out.  I think next time I will bring a few snacks and a good book to read.  Mark was the only one that caught a fish that day.  We found a pile of fish heads and guts in the creek so someone had a great day fishing the day before.

Mark was very patient with his mom.  He was a great help by grabbing my hand and pulling me up when I needed it.  On the way out Mark was in the lead, then Jacob, then me and then Spike.  We were almost out of the canyon when I heard a rattling sound.  I looked down and sure enough right in front of me and just where Jacob's foot had been there was a four foot long rattlesnake.  Yikes!  I was glad that he didn't get bitten.  It looked to us like the snake had about 10 rattles on it.  It got away before we could harvest the rattles.  That would have been a good show and tell for Jacob when school starts. This was the first time I have actually seen a rattlesnake in the wild.  I could do without seeing one again.

I hope we do this again this year but things at our house are starting to speed up.  Mark is still working but also started two a day football practices.  They did the conditioning test this morning and will hit the hard stuff this afternoon.  Their zero week game is in Douglas.  That should be interesting since Douglas was number 1 in 3A last year and it seems to me quite a few years before that.  They are well coached.  I guess we will get to see where we are weak and work on those areas.  School starts in two weeks.  Jacob will like that.  He has been busy all summer mowing the lawn, doing his Rosetta Stone Spanish, piano lessons and reading 'Lord of the Rings'  He just got to the second book in the trilogy 'The Two Towers".  He really likes it and is amazed about how different the movie is from the book.