Crikey, My Mate and I Saw a Snake!

Today I got off work early so I called Cheryl to see if she and Jenna wanted to go for a walk. We decided that we'd head down to Bower Ponds, a recreational area in Red Deer that's right along the Red Deer River.

We get down there, get Jenna loaded into her stroller, and start walking. Cheryl tells me about how her friend Krista was walking down at Bower Ponds last year and saw a snake, so then Cheryl, even though she wasn't with Krista at the time and didn't see the snake, wouldn't go to Bower Ponds herself for a long time. I had never heard of snakes at Bower Ponds but wasn't really interested in seeing any either.

All is well until about 45 minutes into our walk. Cheryl was pushing Jenna, and then I heard Cheryl gasp/scream, and there it was, all black and yellow, slithering on the path into the bushes. Well, I tell ya, you've never seen a stroller get whipped around so fast and three gals go running in the other direction. We then had to take the little bit longer route around to get back to the truck, but it was better than encountering that thing again.

Afterwards, we were talking about our close encounter, but then Cheryl said let's not talk about it anymore, it's so disgusting. Then she wanted to throw the stroller out, even though there actually wasn't any contact made between the snake and the stroller.

I think Bower Ponds is now permanently ruined for Cheryl. Quite frankly, it's not exactly on my list of best places to walk or bike or rollerblade in Red Deer either anymore. Luckily there's 72 km of trails in Red Deer so we shouldn't have difficulty finding another walking route!