04/19/21 - Gaviota Beach, CA - DEFENDING THE PATH - This morning we hiked a couple miles up to the Wind Caves where we had a great view of the wild flower-covered hills, our campground, the railroad bridge and the ocean. On the way back, we ran into two different rattlesnakes trying to cross the gravel hiking path. The first turned around. The second stuck around and decided to sun himself in the middle of the hiking path. We decided to roll a rock towards it hoping to get a reaction. As you can see, we did. After getting our pics, we rolled some more rocks towards it until it finally got the hint to move on. My guess is that the two snakes were pretty young: only a couple feet long and we could barely hear their short chain of rattles. Glad we were able to get by them without incident.