Lake Lagunita

A couple of Fridays ago (after our lazy Wed. and Thurs.) we went with some of our friends to Lake Lagunita...it's a lake that forms during the raining season at Stanford. Even though we're entering the dry season, it still has water. We showed up late...Maya was napping, so by the time we arrived most of our friends had already walked around the lake, and were getting ready to eat their picnic lunches. We ate lunch with them, while the kids ran around and played/argued with each other. I had only been to Lake Lagunita when it was dry when we first arrived to Stanford, so I didn't know what it actually looked like, so another one of my friends, Sarah, and I decided to walk around the lake with our children after lunch.


As we started our walk along the trail Sarah and I were talking, then her son Daniel (who is about a week older than Arden) and Arden both said to us, "look, a snake." We thought, 'yeah, uh huh, good pretending.' Then, we turned around to see 'the snake,' thinking it was a log, and it was a real snake. It was about 4 ft. long, beautiful snake...I was a bit nervous at first, since I didn't know what kind of snake it was, and Cali does have very poisonous snakes, so we told the kids to stay away from it. Luckily, there were a couple of Stanford landscaping employees who told us the snake wasn't poisonous, it was a gopher snake. It was walking peacefully towards a gopher hole. One of the guys called in to let someone know they had found a snake, while the other guy caught the snake. The snake got mad that it was being bothered and tried to scape. As we're watching this, Sarah and I are wondering, "is that necessary? Why are they bothering the snake?" I was almost wishing we wouldn't have said anything to those guys about the snake, it seemed like they were bothering it. We finally asked them what were they going to do with it. The man told us they were going to take the snake to a secluded spot, so it wouldn't be bothered, otherwise, some of the people who walk around the lake with their dogs, would have had their dogs chase the snake and killed it, and it's a protected species. What a relief!

The kids had a chance to pet the snake. Sarah and her kids went back to their car...it was getting late for them. Arden, Maya, and I continued walking around the lake. I can't believe I hadn't gone to it before! It was beautiful. Besides the snake, we saw herons, ducks, different species, with ducklings. We also saw some blue dragonflies, Arden really liked that, and very small frogs that an older gentleman caught to show them to Arden, who also petted the frogs. It was such a neat trip around the lake. I also thought, what a great experience for Arden.
Then we walked home, and walked pass the Stanford Fair. By the time we got home it was nap/quiet time. It was such a good day.
So where are the pictures? I forgot the camera. That's why this post is so long. If I would have brought my camera, I wouldn't have written this much. After quiet time, Newel got home and Arden told his daddy all about his wonderful experiences.

Oh, one more thing...this is kind of funny...at one point on our walk, there was a small trail that took you much closer to the water...for a moment I thought about going on that trail, then I thought to myself, "nope, there might be a gator." Yes, we've been trained well in FL to not go into or near lakes b/c there might be a gator. I immediately reminded myself where I was and chuckled a little bit.