worst nature walk ever

This weekend I hung out with my dad, who is doing really well with his chemo (he's barely lost any hair). We decided on Saturday to go for a walk so he could show me a nature trail in his neighborhood that he recently discovered. It turned out to be fraught with danger, and we barely escaped with our lives. Okay, slight exaggeration but actually it's not.

The trail was in the woods, the trail was damp, and it was overgrown in places. My snake sense was tingling like crazy so I was looking down at the trail to make sure one didn't sneak out of the undergrowth and bite me. I barely registered a family in front of us with three noisy girls ages 5 - 8. I almost bumped into my dad when he stopped, and I looked up, noticing the father of the girls was taking pictures. Oh, more boring pictures of trees I thought. Then my dad said "that's one hell of a snake".

I looked over to the area where the dad was pointing his camera and saw a HUGE black snake cruising along a cleared area. My brain was like "FUCK ME" but then I managed to suppress the urge to run. "You better get the fuck away from me RIGHT NOW!" I yelled at the snake (it was 10 feet away so technically not that close, but, how close is too close for a 5 foot black snake?).

The snake seemed to turn its head towards me so I made the meanest face I can, which is my serial murderer face. Surprisingly the snake high tailed it down a hole. It' looked like a corkscrew it was going down the hole so fast. I was like "you better run you fucker!" and my dad said "good job! you scared the snake!"

The annoying family in front of us was moving slow and my dad thought about passing them and then, thankfully, said "let's go up this other trail and look at the swimming pool". I didn't want to look at the pool, and wanted to pass the family instead, but I followed him. That diversion literally probably saved my life.

After we looked at the pool and the tennis courts, basketball court, and playground, we headed back into the woods to finish the nature trail. I heard shrieking coming from the girls farther down the trail. I said to my dad "that's weird, it sounds like something bad is happening and not like they're playing around". Seconds later the (I guessed to be) 6 year old girl came running towards us screaming, seriously, at the top of her lungs. "What the fuck?" I thought to myself.

She said "we were attacked! we were attacked!" I said "what do you mean?" and she showed me her arm which had 5 large welts on it. Apparently the family had been attacked by yellow jackets. The rest of the family (maybe they were idiots) were still standing in the area getting attacked. The 6 year old girl had run away.

I found more bites on her legs and back but she was so hysterical I couldn't do anything to help her. I asked where her parents were and she said "still back there!" No way was I going to go get them since I have an anaphylactic allergy to yellow jacket stings. I started yelling for the parents and then the 8 year old came up. Finally, after a few minutes, the mom came lumbering up with a toy poodle in her arms. I said "your daughter has been stung at least 10 times by yellow jackets - you need to get her out of here now!" Of course the dad and grandfather were still in the area of the yellow jackets.

We all started walking out of the woods. The 5 year old kept flipping out screaming about being in pain or getting stung again (she was right behind me and I was like oh god she is attracting bugs like crazy and they might get me). Finally we came to the trail divide and my dad and I decided to take the pool trail and walk home on the road. All the little girls were screaming and hysterical and we couldn't take it anymore.

We ran into them getting into their car as we circled around the trail on the road. The 5 year old was taking benedryll. The six year old and the father had been stung multiple times on the face (and other places). The mom had been stung on the ass. It was horrible. I don't know why they didn't run when the first yellow jacket hit the 5 year old.

As we headed back to the house I couldn't help feeling lucky that we didn't pass them. If I had been attacked by yellow jackets I might not be writing this. And I told my dad I'm not going into those woods again until it's fucking winter.