A Time to Pray, and a Time to Hike

Today was an especially good one, considering I didn't really have any plans except to go to the service at church. And I suppose that's another point about myself that I don't really broadcast. I am a Christian and attend a church called "Reality" which is held in the auditorium of the city college. I really enjoyed the service today, because it focused on the act of praying in order to grow in prayer, something that I feel I've been lacking in lately. The worship music was excellent today as well, so I felt revived.

Some of the ladies from my sister sorority who go to the same church as me decided to take a trip up to the Gaviota Wind Caves, so we piled in a couple of cars and headed up to the trail head. It wasn't a long hike, but the heat and relatively steep ascent made the going slow. It was a great view of the surrounding hills and the ocean in the distance. As per its name, there were multiple caves to explore around inside. with very interesting rock formations made of sandstone.

We got to take a lot of pictures, and eventually kept climbing up the hillside to some bigger caves. The view was great, I saw a blue jay, and we tried to find the travel log that was supposed to be at the top of the caves, but we couldn't locate it. After having a little lunch and doing some more climbing, we decided to make the trip back down, and once we got to one of the lower caves, did a little more climbing on the inside, until my Big Sis saw a rattlesnake...

It was a small juvenile, maybe only a little over a foot long, and after doing a little research, I found it was a Southern Pacific rattlesnake. we took several pictures, but don't worry, we didn't attempt to poke it, though I was contemplating trying to use a stick to take it out of the cave since so many people were coming  through those caves, but ended up deciding to leave it in peace (since of course it Was there first). After a minutes it decided it was sick of our presence and retreated to a corner of the cave, but not after buzzing a little at us. we proceeded to climb around some more, and then headed back to the cars, driving back to SB and snagging some ice-cream.

Overall, it was an excellent, beautiful day, and I feel so blessed to be able to take these kinds of trips with good friends.