Got up early this morning for a hike- wanted to get to my hill and set up the Nikon on a tripod for some camera practice using manual settings.  I left the house a little before 6:00 a.m., using my headlamp.  Shortly after getting onto shortcut road, I encountered a large rattlesnake.  In the dark I couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead, so I played it safe and took a picture from a distance.  When I passed by on the way home, saw that he was indeed dead, probably a male (worn rattlers) and almost four feet long.  This is the biggest one I have seen this Spring.

I continued on my hike and got to the hill in plenty of time to set up the camera and tripod.  The sunrise did not cooperate, but here is one of the pictures I took from the top of the hill.

Own the walk back home I was listening to my MP-3 player and had earbuds in, so I didn’t hear the train coming until it was very close.  One of the things I like about my new Samsung Galaxy S7 is to quickly open the camera by tapping the home key twice.  This allows me to take pictures that I would normally miss.  After snapping a picture of the train, I also took one of the sunrise on my phone.

I am really impressed with the camera on this phone and look forward to using it a lot while I am one the trail in Peru.  At the end of the walk, my GPS showed 8.15 miles and 794′ total ascent– a nice Sunday morning walk!