Momentary Lapse in Sanity...

Last year for our 7th year anniversary, we took family trip to Murfreesboro Arkansas, where we dug for diamonds at The Crater of Diamonds State Park...  On our way home, we found ourselves taking shelter in the freezer of a restaurant off the highway as a tornado passed overhead...

This year, in keeping with the spirit of excitement and fear, we decided to go to the Rattlesnake Roundup...   Many poeple come to small towns to hunt for rattlers, enjoy the reenactments, join in the street fair, shop the sometimes strange vendor booths, enjoy the rodeo, partake in the street dance, get a look at the snakes, or try a bit of rattler fried up...

My grandfather took several of my 18 cousins and I once when we were much younger...  We thought we were actually hunting snakes, but we were roaming the countryside wearing ourselves out, as our parents sat at home in peace...  I went back a few years ago with my daughter, who was a toddler at the time, in tow, only for the townwide garage sale and to get some rattlesnake meat for my husband to try...  I learned then that I apparently should not try to cook rattler...

We are about to enter the Den of Death to get a look at all the rattlesnakes that have been caught in the hunt and will be released back into the wild...

In the Den of Death there are other nonpoisonous snake varieties you can hold...  My daughter begged to hold this snake and wants it to do what she wants it to do for a picture...  This is the first of many snakes she held that day...

Here they are adding more snakes that have been caught to the pit...  The handlers must move all of the snakes to the outer edges of the pit so they can walk around and not have mad rattlers underfoot...  It is part of the safety routine...  Some of the handlers actually walk around barefoot and hold these snakes, which are venomous and have not been milked yet...

Wait-how did that happen???  I am scared of snakes and find myself in the pit with a handler telling me about safety and the snakes...

See that sack behind me-it has a blue racer something or other snake in it and that thing moves faster than anything I have seen before...  I am more afraid of it than touching the rattler I have by the tail...  The handler has it's head, but shortly after this shot that rattlesnake looked at me...  My response was to toss that tail and jump back 3 foot...

I made it into the pit, touched a live rattlesnake, why not catch and hold one???  Okay now I can say I did it and I have proof...  I won't do this again EVER and I am ready to put this bad boy down and get out of the pit...

We like the Snake Bite Rescue vehicle much more than being around the snakes!!! 

After a rattlesnake adventure, we found a dinosaur on the way home...  Snakes and dinosaurs, what a day?!?!?!  Who knew these dinos were still around?!?!?