Yes, FOLKS, he's real, and I was alone, and...

Jim carrying him over to the wash beside our house.

He is dead here...a gopher snake (from what we can

tell from the internet pictures)...they can bite but are

non-poisonous!

We were out on the lake a couple weeks ago and we saw

one of these actually swimming in the lake, so we circled it

and it kept looking at us and following us...we watched it until

it swam to shore....ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww...

(we were ON our boat...but yuck).

All the kids are at work today, Tom has walked to the gym,

and I am ready to head to the gym to work-out and pick-up

Tom so I come around to the trunk of the car to put something

in, glance over to my right just a FEW feet and BAM! I about

jumped 5 feet...truly, my heart is still NOT back to normal...

that big guy was just laying there and I'm ALL ALONE! So,

I hurry and call our faithful neighbor Jim....ring, ring, ring,

not home...so I call the gym and get Tom on the phone, he say's

call Jim on his cell phone, so I did and he was just out in the desert

walking and said he was almost home and would be right over.

My heart was pounding like crazy...it's a wonder the pictures

aren't totally blurry! Jim comes over with his trusty gripper

thingy and said the snake was DEAD! Oh my word! I was

about panicking. The garage was smelling AWFUL last evening.

We are guessing when we got home from lunch yesterday after-

noon with Steve and Dan we must of ran over it's tail, it slithered

into the garage and parked himself where I have the picture, and

died there...then the smell began. Oooooh, it was icky. There's

a squishy spot on the driveway where we ran over it!

Yes, Yucky, I know...and scary!