Joshua Tree NP: Rattlesnake

Oh freaking goodness, this is worth a separate post. So there I am walking around aimlessly when I start walking on that neat rock formation in the right of the picture. All of a sudden the bush you see in the picture starts rattling.

Somehow I stayed quite calm (as Elizabeth will attest) and backed away slowly while calling out to Elizabeth: "yeah I see a snake..."

The weird thing about it is I was maybe two feet max away from that bush before the snake rattled. That's pretty close. The other oddity is that after backing away to our picnic table, the snake started coming towards us. We wisely moved to the van where we continued watching the ~3.5 foot rattlesnake move to the other side of the campground.

The plan for now is to be cautious. This is crazy!

Rafael