Saving a gopher snake

Back when I was a recent transplant to Northern California and still had social roots in the Lost Angeles, Orangeless County megaslopolis, I would make several trips south per year to spend a few days with friends. And, since freeways become boring after the second trip, I usually opted for Highway One, rather than 101 or, worse yet, I-5.

Highway One, for those unfamiliar, isn't an unbroken string. Going south, it merges with the 101 at San Luis Obispo, and separates again at Pismo Beach, some 15 miles south. The roads combine again from Gaviota to Oxnard.

It was early on a spring weekday, so the road wasn't crowded, and that charming wooded section from Arroyo Grande to Nipomo was still mostly rural, with scattered homes nestled among the trees. I had driven through Pismo and on to Grover Beach, in that sandy depression between the Pismo Dunes and the Arroyo Grande hills, the place where the fruit stand in spring has the world's or maybe the universe's best strawberries. So, with a flat of berries on the seat beside me, I started up the long grade out of that little valley and toward wooded Nipomo.

About half way up the grade, I saw a hawk fluttering just above the road. He was obviously excited about something, so I slowed down to see. There in front of me was the biggest gopher snake I'd ever seen. It must have been six and perhaps seven feet long, and it was trying very slowly to cross the road, while the hawk was waiting for me to pass so it could pounce.

It didn't seem right. The road that we put there, places an unfair advantage with the hawk. There is no cover for the snake, so it is a sitting duck, or more accurately a sitting snake. I figured the neighborly thing to do was to keep the hawk at bay until the snake crossed the road, thus leveling the playing field. At that point, if the hawk got lucky, it was the natural order of things.

The snake was moving much too slowly for someone being pursued, so I bent down for a closer look, in fact I looked the snake in the eye, a watery, rather dull eye. Then I noticed how it moved, stiffly and with slightly jerky movements. Adding those observations to its incredible size, it struck me that this was one very old snake. Judging from the look of it, had it been human, I'd be looking at a ninety year old. The poor thing was arthritic.

Well, my car was blocking the highway, and I stood guard for the longest time until the poor reptile finally made the thick brush on the side of the road. Then I got back in the car and drove off, watching, in my rear view mirrow, the hawk fluttering just above the brush, knowing I'd done my good deed for the day and armed with a better attitude toward my destination.