From the other side of the house I heard the door burst open. “You’re going to California,” my mom yelled. She said that I was going to go for a week and my aunt was going to take a plane to michigan then fly back to California with me. She explained that she couldn’t go because of work. At first I was surprised and then I was excited. I asked my mom what i was going to do when I got there and she told me she can’t tell me because my aunt wanted it to be a surprise. That made me wonder the rest of the day what we were going to do. Whenever I thought about the plane butterflies rushed through stomach. I didn’t remember what it was like riding the plane because the last time I rode one was around 5 years ago when I was little and went to florida.

My aunt came to my house the next day. We drove to the airport. When we got to the airport parking lot there were planes flying above us and they were so loud it was difficult to hear each other. When we were in the airport I was getting more and more nervous but when we got on the plane it wasn’t bad at all. When we got to California we drove to her house so I could drop off all my stuff. After that we drove around for a little bit to look at things like the Hollywood sign and the Walk Of Fame. After that she told me that we were going to go hiking but first we needed to get food. We went to a place called In-N-Out Burger. They had cheeseburgers, hamburgers, french fries, and shakes. It’s a popular restaurant in California. There was cars wrapped around the whole building but we waited and it was a great cheeseburger-one of the best I’ve ever had. Now it was time to go hiking. Little did I know that day I would see something I never saw before.

We drove to the mountain and she said that she needed to go to the bathroom. While I was waiting for her there were warning posters everywhere for rattlesnakes. When we started walking up I could feel the dry dust in the air. I could hear the bugs chirping in the distance, as we walked up the trail I could feel the tall rough grass rubbing against my legs. We kept on walking on the hard, dry dirt path. We kept stopping and snapping pictures. I was dripping in sweat and we were starting to get thirsty because all the water was gone. My aunt wanted to take a picture of a large, shiny, black rock that was laying in the dirt so we stopped and while I was waiting for her I glanced ahead and I saw a snake in the distance.

I was standing there looking at the unique pattern of brown scales and started thinking about all of the posters I saw about rattlesnakes by the bathroom. Then I pointed it out to my aunt. “It’s a rattlesnake”, she warned. I was surprised that there was an actual rattlesnake lying on the ground. That was the first time I saw one in the wild.
”What should we do,” I asked. 

“Just um...back up and don’t get any closer,” she stammered. The snake was just laying in the middle of the path so we couldn’t pass. There was two choices at that time: wait for it to move or try to pass it. I was wondering what we would do if the rattle snake headed towards us. We were standing there waiting to see if the snake would move so we could pass. Finally the snake slithered out of the path so we could pass by. She told me out of all the years she lived in california she had never saw a snake. The rest of the time in california was exciting.

By the time we got back to her house my legs felt like jello. The rest of the vacation was also fun. We went to the beach and most of the time I spent swimming. we also went to a minor league baseball game. Her friend was having a pool party so we went there and swam and ate food.

When I got back home my mom asked what seemed like one million questions and warned me not to mess with snakes if I don’t know what kind they are. I learned from this experience to always be aware of what's around you and not to panic when you're in danger.  Next time I see a  rattlesnake I will know exactly what to do.