Mesa, AZ - Our Kind of Rattlesnake

The old saying that familiarity breeds contempt does not apply with rattlesnakes and black widows.

Today was just a hike - nothing special and not one I’d repeat. Gary agreed with me, and it was about 1/2 hour away from here too so it took a bit of a drive. However, the day was bright and sunny, we met some nice people along the way and I saw the kind of rattlesnake I can take - in a cage. We also saw the graves of two old characters that almost seem like stereotypes of the old west.

The hike did have some nice views from the south part of the Phoenix suburbs.

And, look at this guy - the king of the mountain.

We met a mountain biker with long flowing white hair but who was probably about 45 or so. He lived in Los Angeles for a long while and now misses the ocean. But he has discovered the desert and mountain biking all over the trails and has immersed himself in his new love. It didn't hurt that he sold his LA home for $600,000 and bought a bigger hime here with more land for only $100,000. 

Meanwhile, back at the gravesite for Carter Mansel and Marion Kennedy. Carter was born in Ohio and while he was growing up he had many occupations including an airplane shuttle service, managing a photography business and a logger on the Zuni Indian Reservation. Finally he came to the Phoenix area and began mining for gold with a man who delivered ice, a Cherokee Indian from Oklahoma, Marion Kennedy. In 1948, they moved to the San Tan region to escape the ‘crowds’ in town and lived here for many years. 

They worked their claim until Kennedy died in 1960 after which Carter began to make small cactus and wood carvings he called Cactus Curios. He became quite famous and visitors from all over the world came to see him. The Phoenix Magazine in 1987 named him an ‘Arizona Legend.’ It’s not easy to get to this gravesite since it is 1/2 mile in on the trail. But it’s the unexpected things that make hiking fun.

When we mention that we hike a lot our here in the west, everyone always asks, fearfully, if we’ve ever run across any rattlesnakes. My father-in-law has told us innumerable times to be sure to watch our for them. We always have to answer that we’ve never seen any rattlers although we’ve seen some snakes, all harmless and quickly slithering away from us. Actually, since we’re hiking out here in the winter, we’re unlikely to ever see any since most snakes hibernate in the winter. We don’t quite sound like a brass band when we’re hiking but we do tend to make noise to scare off what ever beasties might be lurking around. We’ve seen a snake or two that looked like a rattler but that’s only because we really aren’t sure what a rattler looks like.

But the Visitor Center at the San Tan Regional Park where we hiked did nature classes for kids and had some of the native wildlife in the classroom. Anyone could wander around though and I took advantage of this to check out the wildlife myself. Here are two of the snakes I saw but there were also some lizards and some other snakes.

The rattler is on the right and on the left is a shy king snake. Both are in cages and thus are my favorite kinds of snakes.