Tarantula Trail

Saturday (October 2nd) started off relaxing and very enjoyable. It had been a calm day at our house and then I decided to call Grandma to see if she wanted to go hike at Santa Rosa Plateau with the kids and I.

When we left my house, the sky was so crisp and blue with enormous white clouds here and there. These were the kinds of clouds that looked like mounds of fluffy white powdered sugar. I was excited to take my Mom to this hiking area finally, after all of the hikes I have told her about and how fun this place was. I think I jinxed myself by saying that. We arrived to the trail at about 4:30pm, which now looking back, was probably not the best time to go out in the hills....because it was feeding time - for the wild life! Yikes!

We started off the hike and came across a tarantula.... We pushed the double jogger stroller close to it so Hailee could see and so she would not be afraid....which she wasn't at all. So we continued on our hike.

Then we came across tarantula #2. My Mom and I started getting a little creeped out. These spiders are huge! We ran by it, in fear that for some reason it would jump onto us. But, we made it past safely.
Then we came to this mean guy- an enormous rattle snake. I have never seen a rattler tail so big before. You can definitely tell he does not lack in the food department. We stood a ways away, throwing rocks at it and trying to get him to move. He wouldn't budge. By this time, Hailee was starting to get a little nervous. She curled her legs up close to her body and bit down on her blanket. Not once did she cry though, she just sat there and watched us trying to scare the snake.
We threw rocks at him for probably a good 10 minutes, even hitting him a couple of times, but he would not budge. He only would rattle that tail of his now and then. We realized he dominated this trail. We had to turn back.


And thankfully, we ran into another one of these! (haha, I am being totally sarcastic that I was thankful for another tarantula).

Hailee spotted this one for us! (Tarantula #4)

Tarantula #5

And lastly, tarantula #6


So, in conclusion of our short two mile hike, we came across SIX tarantulas and one HUGE rattle snake. Guess we learned our lesson to not go hiking during feeding time at dusk. My Mom joked around that she will not come hiking with me out here again, but I'm pretty sure she will give it another shot. Whats a hike with out the "adventure", right?

Grandma, Hailee and Jake

Me and the kids


I have to say, Hailee and Jake are such amazing kids. They love to be outdoors and are always (most of the time) happy! And I was so proud of Hailee for being so brave with all of the big spiders and snake.

We decided that we needed to go do something not so adventurous, so we headed to downtown Temecula to walk around and get some dinner. We had a wonderful time!

Can't wait to go hiking again, but hoping I won't see another tarantula or snake for a while!