2011-06-04 34 -83
| Sat 4 Jun 2011 in Toccoa: 34.1544377, -83.7796429 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox |
Graticule
About
Off of a dirt driveway in Braselton.
Expedition
NWoodruff
This seemed to be an easy Geohash for today so I drove out to this location. It was an easy drive, only 24 miles. The Atlanta Geohash was too far out of my way today to accomplish.
I found the dirt road without a problem and decided to drive up. The road split one way to a driveway and went another way. I took the path that the eTrex was pointing. It was pointing away from the dirt driveway. I drove about 50 feet and found a clearing in the grass that looked like it had been used many times as a turn around. I parked there.
I got out and started walking to the house. I was going to ask for permission to access the property as it looked like that the hash spot was going to fall on their property. I made it half way up the driveway till I spotted the house. I could tell that the house had not been occupied in a number of years, maybe 10 or more. The windows were broken out and the back half of the porch roof had fallen down.
I walked back to almost my truck when the eTrex started pointing directly into the tall grass. I walked into the tall grass and I saw and heard the grass move. At first I thought it might be a cat or a rabbit. As I moved farther into the tall grass, I could see it was on the ground and though a chipmunk or ground hog. I could hear it moving around to the right of me. I followed its movement and parted the grass enough to see that it was a snake. A long snake. 6 to 8 feet long snake. I thought about reaching down and grabbing its tail as it went by me but thought better of it as it was large in diameter. Not as large diameter as my wrist but close.
I thought it was trying to avoid me by moving to where I came from. What I didn't know is that it was circling around behind me. I turned to where the sound was coming from to see if I could get a better look at the size and kind of snake it was. I could see from several different places that the grass was moving that it was a long snake. I had no idea that it was then coming at me.
With out warning, all of a sudden from the side of me at about 2 feet from me, this snake lurches out with it's head up looking like it was going to strike. It scared me a bit and I raised up my foot like I was going to stomp on it.
But the surprising thing is that I looked directly at the snake and it looked directly at me. When the snake recognized me as human, it looked almost as surprised as I was. It pulled it head back and quickly slithered back into the tall grass away from me much faster than it did to circle around me.
I felt that it knew that I was human and to avoid me at all costs. It had to of known, that I was a rather large animal, if not human, maybe a large dog or a deer or something.
I know that animals are intelligent. But this snake was big enough to have a fighting chance to bring down a deer or a human. But, only took a half second or so for it recognize that I was human and to flee.
Most animal avoid other animals just because. Most animals avoid humans because they have dealt with humans. I doubt this wild snake has dealt with a human before but somehow knew to flee.
I started hopping out of the grass toward the geohash spot. When I got to the hill and looked up at how steep it was, I then looked at my eTrex. 29 feet, I'm inside of the 10 meters. I quickly snapped off a few pictures of the eTrex and surrounding area.
I then leaped out of the tall grass toward my truck. I stood there at my truck till 4pm and then snapped a few other picture.
I then got in my truck and headed home.
Gallery
- Photo Gallery
29.6 feet to go. I'm inside of the 10 meter requirement.
Time of meetup. I'm 5 minutes early.
Date of the meetup.
The hill I would have to climb to get closer. I was 100 degrees(almost 40 Celsius) outside and I was in shorts.
Distance to the dirt road. This is also the grass that the snake was in.
Distance to where I parked my truck.
4pm The official meetup time.
Still at the location, just out of the grass.
