Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, but my husband doesn't like bears much. I don't know if I would say he is frightened of them but he isn't really comfortable with them. Maybe it is because there aren't a lot of bears in West Texas where he grew up? I am a big believer in the fact that many times what creates fear in people is what the don't understand or aren't familiar with. This is the case I believe with me and snakes. Growing up in the mountains of Colorado we had no rattlesnakes around for sure and I believe maybe twice in all my time growing up I saw a small harmless snake there. Needless to say, I have had zero experience with snakes which might not be a good thing living in Texas.
When we moved to Texas a year and a half ago we moved to a place in town so we never saw a snake. Then we moved out in the country a year ago but as of yet have not seen one. I know that day will come though and I don't look forward to it. In an effort to keep my fear at bay though, I decided when my husband told me about a large snake event near us, that I needed to learn what I could. So, we packed up the truck and traveled 4 hours to Sweetwater, TX for the annual Rattlesnake Round-up. We decided to make a fun trip out of it and stayed in a hotel overnight and headed to the place early in the morning. Boy am I glad we got there early. By lunch time it was so crowded we couldn't even move which worked out fine as we were ready to go get some food and head home. While we were there though, it was actually quite educational and really very interesting.
There were two pit areas where they did presentations. There was one where they were milking the venom from the snakes and while it looked very interesting we actually didn't get a chance to learn a lot there as it was pretty crowded. The other pit area though was where we learned the most. They did a presentation on the snakes talking all about them from how many babies they have to how big they get, etc. The man who did it had about 8 snakes on the ground in the pit with him but had protective boots on and they basically left him alone as long as he left them alone. He did pick up one with a pole though and showed us the teeth and talked all about it. He put it on the table and showed us how it would strike by getting it to strike at a balloon. It didn't actually pop the balloon but it was still cool. The kids got to ask him questions and we learned a lot. They also got to pet a different kind of snake that wasn't poisonous.
There was another area where they were skinning the snakes and then they had a place where they cooked and sold the fried meat. It was way crowded there though so we didn't get to do that this time. We did get to watch them skin them though. The last area was a pit where there were hundreds of rattlesnakes all in it just rattling non-stop. While I was so glad I went and learned about the snakes I decided that was a bit much for me so I let Joe and the kids look at it and I just glanced, took a picture of the kids and moved back. Overall, though, I am so glad we went and when the boys are bigger we may do one of the hunts that they do along with the round-up. Our boys are in the bright orange hats in these pictures.
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