Mark, you were fairly close, relatively speaking, when you guessed Portland (less than 400 miles away). Except I am across the state, on the other side of the Cascade mountain range, in a very small ranching community in the Oregon High Desert, with lots of sagebrush outside of town.

Most people around here believe that, "The only good snake is a dead snake", because they are, unreasonably, paranoid about Rattlesnakes. They, also, mistakenly, believe that, "All snakes are Rattlesnakes". While I, on the other hand, respect Rattlesnakes. I do not, and will not, own one; but do I believe that Rattlesnakes should be allowed to live with the freedom necessary to reduce the vermin population.

I live within the natural ranges of both Great Basin Gopher snakes Pituophis catenifer deserticola, and Wandering Garter snakes Thamnophis elegans vagrans. I was shopping at a yard sale, located about 1 mile (as the crow flies) or 2 miles (as the car drives) away from my house, on 18 May 2002; when the women running the sale freaked-out because a snake had slithered across their feet; so I rescued the GB Gopher snake, before they could kill it. My Wandering Garter snake was captured in the late summer, or early autumn, of 2000 at the small (money loser) ranch that my parents used to have about 10 miles out of town.

My user name, of Snakey Lakey, comes from the name that I gave to my first snake (when I was in the first or second grade), though I am now middle-aged.

Snakey Lakey

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