Here's a warning to all snakes and ill-minded creatures. Don't mess with Michele Hobson. She swings a Diet Mountain Dew bottle like Barry Bonds swings a Louisville Slugger.
Apparently about 13 miles downstream from the city of Atlanta, MI, on the Thunder Bay River, a snake decided to take a ride in the canoe paddled by Checkpoint Zero teammates Michele Hobson and Scott Pleban. Michele can't say how the snake got into the boat -- though it probably dropped in from a tree limb -- just that she first felt the snake crawling across her bare feet in the front of her canoe.
Michele, not a snake lover by any stretch, immediately took action. She tossed her paddle in favor of a much better reptile whoopin' weapon: an empty Diet Mountain Dew bottle. After taking more than a few violent swats to the noggin, the snake apparently slithered to safety through a crack between the canoe floor and the front bulkhead and wouldn't come out. Good decision.
Meanwhile, a flash thunderstorm was lighting up the sky and dropping buckets of rain. Jon Barker and I, who were in the other canoe right behind our teammates, chased down the paddles lost to the river during the commotion and helped ferry Michele across the water to a flat shoreline where we took shelter at the home of a kind elderly couple who whipped us up some warm coffee and hot chocolate. Not wanting to be in aluminum boats on a river during a thunderstorm, the team decided to wait until the weather calmed down and figure out how to get the snake out of the boat.
Understandably, the snake didn't want to tangle with Michele again, so we couldn't get him to crawl out. So, the team decided to plug the small gaps between the canoe floor and the bulkhead with some newspaper given to us by our friendly river couple. We wanted the snake to at least stay put for the rest of his river ride.
And Michele, choosing to give the snake a second chance at life, decided to let Jon and me paddle the boat with the snake the rest of the way. Lucky snake.
- Paul Cox, not the team reptile hunter