Reptile Fight Club - Arizona/New Mexico Trip Recap

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

In this episode, Justin and Rob discuss their recent trip to Az/NM. Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comIG https://www.instagram.com/jgjulander/Follow Rob @ https://www.instagram.com/highplainsherp/Follow MPR Network @FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQWebsite: https://mprnetwork.transistor.fm/

All right, welcome to Reptaught Fight Club. I'm Justin Joolander, your host for this evening with me, as always. Rob Stone. How are you doing, Rob? I'm doing great. I'm excited to be here. I'm catching up on stuff. A little bit.

Still drinking from Fire hose, but yeah, all good. Good, good. I think I might actually have some pregnant mice out in my colony, so that's exciting. Nice development, finally. I still might have to go down and buy some or something. which is a rare thing for me. So I shouldn't complain too much, but what do you do? Yeah, we thought we might be joined by some of our fellow travelers,

but they haven't seemed to jump on. And, I mean, being recently in Arizona and New Mexico, jumping over the border time and time again, you lose track of what time zone. So maybe they're just confused and not sure which time zone we're in. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We'll see him in a bit.

Yeah, and who knows, tried to split the difference for East Coast, West Coast folks. And I know Nipper's not going to come right at the middle of the night. So, yeah, fair enough. But I did want to one off topic before we get there. You mentioned we had the update from whatever it was four or six weeks ago. I guess it must have been, yeah, somewhere in that range, about the rat fiasco. Yeah. Is that you resolved that fully?

Not fully. I mean, like I said, the mice are maybe start. to produce again. Like all the breeder colonies that I have had have not produced since that time. So over a month now and it's been very stressful because now, you know, it's time to feed all the babies and things like that. So hopefully, yeah, but things have cooled down. We got a lot of rain today. It's, it's been in the 60s. So yeah, things are moving towards fall conditions. I see some leaves changing colors up the canyon, you know, on my, from campus today. And so, you know, it's getting cooler. And I think the mice and rats will hopefully bounce back soon. No, no pregnant rats yet that I could find.

And just some, just a couple of mice. So I set up a couple new colonies. Hopefully they, yeah, make their way to produce some, some pinkies. But I've been using Frozen that I've had for a little while and so that's helpful i guess that's the point right free some down when you have extras and so that's that's been helpful and i've been feeding a lot of frozen thawd which is probably good for the customer anyway that's buying the baby snakes so yeah but yeah as long as they're taking it right yeah yeah got my last clutches of the year to hatch out i got a clutch of bretles pythons i don't remember if i mentioned that they hatched out i got i think 12 or so and pretty even split males and females, and then the clutch of ball pythons of all things.

Wow. So, yeah, it was a pied clutch, and I think there's a pastel Mojave pied and a Mojave pied in the mix, and then some sort of super pastel Mojave thing. But the super pastel Mojave thing has like a kink in its neck. So I don't know if it's going to stick around here or what will become. of it, but we'll see, see how it develops. Sometimes they kind of go away and it's not as noticeable, but I don't know. It was a little smaller too, so, but yeah, kind of different hatching out of Ball Python again.

I had a bunch. I mean, that, that hails back to the Benson Morrill days, you know, they are AAR. And so, yeah, it's, I don't have as many, but still have a few kind of fun projects. So, I don't know. I got them back and didn't really. really, I didn't really plan any pairings or anything, but I had some together just for space issues and they produce clutches. I missed one clutch out of something or other, but so, yeah, we'll see. Those would have been very exciting 15 or 20 years ago, I'm sure. Right, right.

Yeah, I mean, pides are always cool. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, as far as morphs go, but yeah absolutely well that's cool yeah things are things are good around here we're uh in potentially in the process of getting solar so that's kind of exciting we're um there's a program that's a state program with the power company here that will um allow you to hook up your solar and they'll buy you know right power from you at a certain price point and so basically you don't have a power bill, but you're paying off the panels instead. And so the panel payment is fixed. So even though the price of power goes up, your bill stays the same basically until you pay off the panels. So we'll see if we get accepted. They delivered them. I'm like, don't deliver them.

I don't even know if we're accepted into the program. I don't want to have a bunch of, you know, solar panels all over my yard. So I don't know. See what happens with that. But that, that could be beneficial, you know, in the long run. If we could have solar, I guess, feel a little better about things and, you know, not taking from the grid, but putting back into it. So we'll see how it goes. Yeah. I remember what years ago, when Owen had gotten hooked up, yeah, much to, I think it's

been, you know, a good thing, if not a boon forum. That's good. Yeah, and I don't know. I mean, you hear all the horror stories of people getting screwed over. So I'm just on edge, you know. I was really, really very skeptical about the program. And, like, I mean, I called the power company. I said, hey, do you know about this program?

They're like, no, I've never heard of that. And then the solar company's like, of course they don't want to tell you they've heard of it, because then they have to buy solar from you, you know, like if you get accepted to the program. So I'm like, and they showed us on their website and all this kind of stuff, like educated us. So unless they are very good at, you know. Quite an elaborate route. Exactly. Then it should be okay.

So we'll see, see what happens. But, yeah. Okay. Cool. Yeah, we're moving forward with the book. We got some nice feedback from a researcher in Australia on the Aspeditis book. So hopefully that's making forward progress. Bob did ask about it.

So that was nice. You know, we'll see. Hopefully that will be out soon. It's, you know, I'm kind of leaving it in Lucas's hands, trying to help as much as possible, you know, where he needs it. But, yeah, he's moving it forward and we're getting closer. So that's always such a process, though. There's always, like, one more thing to do and one big hurdle that you don't think of.

So, yep, my sympathies, Lucas. And what's the framing on that? That's complete Aspeditis, or it shows it's going to show up to something different? No. Yeah, complete Aspeditis. So just the two species, but it's got some, you know, nice information and should be a cool book. And at least some eye candy photos with, you know, all the different regional variants and things and some that we found. And it's always nice to include your own photos in those books that you've, you know, the specimens you've found out in the wild.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think the only one I have pictures that I really like, you have photos of as well. we found one on the previous trip that we were up there. But, man, they are actually tough to take photographs, so particularly the night. Right. Yeah, the blackheads just kind of. Well, and I only had a cell phone, so you probably have better pictures anyway with your real camera. Yeah, I'll look through them and see, because that was awesome.

Just seeing pictures in a book. I can't even imagine being the author. Well, I think the downside of that, right, is so much more involvement and so much more work. But, yeah, seeing pictures in there is really cool. So, yeah, I'll take a peek at them again. But I just remember both times finding them a real struggle to get the flash to not just – They're sort of like Lampropeltus, right? They just have those shiny scales.

Oh, shiny. Right. And black on, you know, in the night is a little more difficult as well. Yeah. Yeah, I'll be curious to see what kind of shots are submitted and, you know, who – What makes a name. Okay. You're still working through that? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Lucas is the point of contact for the photo way out. Yeah. I've, I've sent him a bunch of the stuff I had, you know, on my phoners.

All right. Well, I have to do the same then. Yeah. Yeah. For, I mean, for the books, the phoners have worked okay. But, like, obviously the professional cameras do a better job. Yeah. As long as they're framed well and all that good stuff. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, I think that's all the business. Should we dive into the trip? And perhaps we'll be joined by some of these folks. I guess I can, I mean, I can start with my solo ventures to start out with if that works. And maybe have my start and end of my trip because that was separate from you guys to some extent. But so, yeah, driving from my house to rodeo is a long haul.

It's like 15 plus hours. So I was like, I don't want to drive that far. And I had to work on Tuesday. So I went to work and got my stuff done. And then I headed down. And I have a friend that lives in Phoenix, a great friend from high school, Shane. And he's an empty nester now. All his kids are out of the house.

And so he and his wife just have a bunch of spare bedrooms. So I'm like, hey, can I come crash at your house? And it's a nice house in like a gated neighborhood and stuff like that. So I figured I would go knock one of the forms of Crotolis off the list and try to redeem myself from my trip home from IHS last month. And so I went to kind of northwest of Phoenix into an area down. I can't remember. I think the town was Whitmore somewhere near there and cruised a road where there were some records on INAT or something. So nothing too special or exciting.

I didn't find my own spot or anything. But it was kind of funny because I routed to where the majority of the observations were kind of started. And as soon as the routing assistant said, you have arrived at your destination, there was a sidewinder in the headlights. And it's like, oh, that was easy. You know, there he is. And I mean, these are not hard to find and plenty of people have found them. So it was kind of funny that I hadn't seen one yet, but I guess hadn't looked too hard other than one or two other times. So, yeah.

But it was a nice. Yeah. I think they're dense within pockets. It's basically what it comes down to. But if you're not in those pockets, and I don't know that those pockets are really overlap with a bunch of other things that we've been looking for. Right. So it's kind of your specific. Exactly.

It takes the task of specifically looking for those, whether it's outside two, selling outside Phoenix, wherever you're going. Yeah. So that was, and then it was, I mean, it was after dark and I was like, I don't want to keep my friend up too late waiting for me, you know, to let me in the house or whatever. And so I said, well, I, you know, I found one. So I'm just going to kind of cruise the road and make my way out. And so I headed out and saw, I think, a DOR long-nosed snake and nothing else much after that and just

got to my buddy's house. and got to hang out with him and his wife, talk with him for a while, and then hit the hay. So nice sleep in a comfortable bed. And then in the morning, got up early and headed out and drove straight to you guys. So that was another semi-adventure because I met you guys out in the Pels and drove pretty much straight there. and about 50 feet from the parking lot, I popped a tire on a rock. And so you guys were up, you know, hiking around in the mountains. And so I got to the parking lot and Phil greeted me there, got to see Phil catch up with him for a bit.

So that was nice. And then basically put on the spare tire. And then just as I was getting my backpack to head out and go find you guys, Dustin radio's in and says, we're on our way back. I'm like, okay, great. So Dustin joined me and we drove to Douglas and got a new tire. So that's where I joined you guys. So I guess we have a guest here.

Hello, Dustin. Or not. Maybe he took up. Hello. He got shy. There he is. What's up, Dustin? How are you guys doing?

Good. How are you? Doing good. Kind of trying to get back to normal life, but... Yeah, yeah. It's the way it goes. Yeah. Right on.

Well, everything's going well. Everything's doing good. Oh, yeah. Yeah, everything survived me being gone, so that's what's important. Nice. I just kind of started off with my solo efforts on the start of the trip, finding the sidewinder and then meeting up with you guys. So just got to the point where...

We went out to Douglas, but I guess you guys can go back a little further and talk about the start of your trip. Yeah. My trip started out. I got there a little earlier. I hung out with Brandon. I did some fishing, wait for the guys to land. And once they landed, went out and started with the steak that I haven't seen yet, which is a blue speck. Oh, cool.

Awesome. Kind of Phoenix area spec? Yeah. Yeah. Nice. So we were waiting for a field of land and hikes that morning and got one. And what a snake. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A girl in this case. But yeah, man. And holy, Moli,

Phoenix gets hot, which is probably not news to anyone. But, yeah, even you're up there early in the morning and it's, you know, the sun's coming up and it's hot already. And then just gets more and more so.

Yeah. They got hot quick. But at least we're able to knock it out. I've picked that range a few times and it seems, patched no stakes and that's about it so yeah that was a nice blue spec for sure has brandon seen a bunch of those or yeah he's seen a few i mean he lives or he lives live even closer so yeah that's cool yeah the off with the or start starting off with the bang there yeah yeah absolutely you know and as we've either said or alluded to dustin was you know off adventuring meanwhile

it didn't seem promising to me, so I'd take the opportunity to check in with home, and it sort of was wandering around such that Dustin either hollered across the, across and down the canyon or on the radio. And that meant that I then had to cover all the distance that he had covered in a previous hour in 10 minutes or so. So you can imagine when I got up there that I was feeling it, feeling it pretty good. The whole rest of the group, Nick was not as far down as me, but, you know, I saw him going and then he was, okay, well, I got the pitcher, but you'll have to bear with me because this will be a little bit brutal. Right.

But it was worth it, totally worth it. And it does raise an interesting question, you know, something that we had talked about as a topic on the trip. It seems like often, it reminded me, and so maybe it's a spec thing, Justin, because it was sort of the same context as the one, you know, in northwest Arizona that you had turned up, where it seems like those things, when you're in a canyon context like that, they like to be high on the sort of sides of those slopes. Okay. So it's kind of a similar. It was up there.

Yeah. Okay. Well, it's good to know. This was basically the same. Yeah. So I don't know if it's a spec thing. Certainly we see him, you know, man, in Southern California, you can create, that seems to be the most reliable place to turn them up. You can cruise it pretty easily in the right area.

And so you're not seeing it there, but I am curious if it's a spec thing, if it's a croat thing. I don't know. Aspen found a spec on the Beaver Dam slope, kind of where we found the Trimorphadon. And it was not too far up. It was fairly close to the bottom, but it was, you know, on a hillside that was, you know, a little ways up. Yeah, I mean, that spot's a little bit different, right? Because it, well, it's a lot different when you don't expect the cut. Right.

I can tell you that from exactly. You're just watching a foot in front of it and then it just falls off, which is interesting. But I think of that more as a hill. I think the context I'm thinking of more is when you're in a proper canyon that they tend to ride closer to the rims rather than in the wash. But maybe that's a functioning time of day, time of year. there are a whole bunch of variables that could be reflected there. And it's only a handful of animals, but it just struck me when we were standing up there thinking about it. And I was, you know, breathing heavy that I was like, it seems like they always like to make you work for it.

Very rarely is that, oh, this is super easy and we turn around. I have seen photos of them in Utah where they're kind of down closer to the wash, like just off the wash in kind of the rocks, you know, the wash side. what are the banks of the wash if basically so not not too far up but so maybe it's just my carmic uh carmic luck or whatever it could be or it could be yeah like you said time of year you know early spring they're coming out of dens and you know maybe down in the washes or something but yeah i don't know it's a good question i haven't seen enough to to know that yeah i say i haven't seen enough i've cruised one but i still haven't seen enough to make a calling on that. I've cruised a couple in California just on the road, but I haven't really

hiked any up out there. So, yeah. I don't think I have either. We've tried. Yeah. I don't know if I'm glad or not that you have, you don't have all the color forms of spec on the list. That would be a little tricky with some of those. That white one seems pretty fun, man. Right. Yeah. I mean, Type 2, type B, whatever it is. But that wet one is pretty neat. Oh, I'd love to see one. Yeah. So hopefully that one gets checked off pretty soon.

Right. Yeah. I wouldn't mind spending more time looking for that. And Jordan put it up me. Nick had asked, we had talked to, well, we talked about a long time ago. And then Nick had asked, and then Jordan was putting up me, the wallopi thing. So we might have to, as much as I took one off the list that we can get to, then maybe we'll add one and why not, right?

Something else to do. Right. Well, and I was happy to see, you know, you guys sent that picture of everybody kind of around the, well, not everybody, but most of you guys around the snake. And I'm like, okay, good. My absence has helped. You always have that fomo. If you're not there, they're going to find something cool and you sure found something cool. Yeah.

Now you just need a white one. That wasn't that bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and white would give you the American flag colors. You can have the red, white, and blue forms. Yeah. Although that one in northwestern Arizona was pretty white.

It was pretty white, but not the same at all. Not the white white, no, yeah. Cool. All right. Then what happened, Dustin? What did happen? That first day we went out. Oh, the up and over, the big up and over.

the big up and over. Yeah, so this would be the next day. So we drove down to Porto Rodeo, and I think we were just, oh, we were messing around and stuff. Yeah. Had a couple of stops on the way there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure.

Turn up to the usual stuff, the little hobbies and gophers and, but a stop worth, worth it on the way out there, especially. Right? Break it up a little bit anyway. Uh-huh. Was it dark, or was this during the, This was like right at sunset, yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. And I was surprised. I guess I haven't seen, I know we saw a scoots above, above town, but I hadn't seen them around the water. So that was a little bit surprising to me. I don't know how often you see them out there.

Yeah. That's the most common sake that I see at least. Yeah. So that was neat. Only a handful of other people there. It does raise another interesting sort of. trip planning question, right, is when you're on the weekend, particularly Friday and Saturday night, I guess that would have been Sunday, but it does seem like you see more people out in nature

or out cruising and those sorts of things. And it's kind of when you're planning a trip, it is something I try and account for of saying if it's diurnal stuff that we're principally looking for, it doesn't really matter. But if we're planning a trip, there's only so much utility and saying, oh, well, we get a double weekend. It's, yeah, well, that can mean, you know, not. necessarily ideal cruising conditions on those extra weekend nights. Yeah, especially in, you know, southern Arizona. If it's a known road, there's going to be herbers on it. Right.

Yeah. And all the more so Friday and Saturday, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's when I can get out the most, you know, getting off work and got the weekends. I'm going to go spend a late night out there.

Right. Though it might be more useful to go on a random Tuesday, you know, if you can, if he can stomach it. If you can get the Wednesday off. Oh, no. Or just worked through it. Yeah, or just go to work. That's true.

Yeah. But then the next morning was the big up and over? Yep, there was a spot in particular. We got in feedback around, hey, have you guys checked this out? And we said, well, we've been, I don't know, 500 feet as the crow flies from there. But we haven't seen that exact spot. So, yeah, we'll check it out. and that was a task.

But it was good, and certainly you heard something, and I could understand there being clobbriy down there for sure. Yeah. I mean, it looked good. But that's the name of the game for theirs. It's going to look good. Is there anything going to be there? Right.

Right. There are plenty of areas. So this is in the Palencia's, which was the principal focus of the trip. And, yeah, where it doesn't look good, there's probably not going to be anything. Oh, we have Nick. Bear with us a second.

Hello, young Mr. Vine. How are you? Hello, I'm as well. Just started a new job, so, yeah. All right. I hope you're not on the clock. No, thankfully this is one of my days off. Oh, cool.

Right on. Welcome. We're just talking about the big up and over. So of the first day that we were down the Pels. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, so what did you make of that, right? That was the place we'd gotten feedback. Oh, this is the place that you need to check out.

One of a few that we hadn't seen at all. We were close by previously, but hadn't seen it all. So what did you make of that hillside and all that? Yeah, I mean, it looks really good. I think, again, kind of got up there a little late. I didn't quite realize how much of an up and over it was going to be. But it all looked good. Yeah.

In my own mind, I was like, well, I'd rather just keep going than try and turn around or go the other way. Yeah, no doubt. What did you make of it, Nick? Yeah, I mean, I'm in the lower elevation, which is cool. Are we talking about the, a month ago or this last one? This last one. Yeah. Oh, this last one, okay.

Yeah. I mean, path of, path of most resistance, right? Like, I think it was good. I think it was good to say that we did it and could, like, eliminate that option. And this was the, this was the potentially clawby spot, yes? Yeah, the second ball. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, not, in hindsight, not as ideal as what I thought in the moment, having, you know, seen other areas later on. but yeah, it was something. It was very vertical. Did you come back the same way you went over? We did not. We went over and you can drop into the east-west running canyons. And so we had done that into one that Dustin had explored most of the group when we first went last year, a year ago.

And it has some promising looking spots. It's relatively steep on one side. but yeah, I think there's even some promise to that. And holy moly, that one's cool because it ends in an actual trail. One and a half such trails in the whole place, which is cool. Yeah. And man, you could really jet. That was the part that was amazing.

It was like it really did bring home to me that, you know, for folks listening, and I don't know how interesting this is or not. But if you're thinking of going to the palencios, the difficulty, one of the difficulties, is you just very rarely get even steps, consecutive even steps. So that the notion that we were actually on a real trail, the amount of ground we covered was easily three or four X what we were able to do when you're just push-whacking through it. Yeah, that's a challenge of that place is there's very few trails

or the trails that are there are maybe overgrown or difficult to follow. especially at night. But, yeah, that's... Hashtag not recommended. To be honest, to be honest, what's our group takeaway? And we can get to the end, you know, go through it. But if you have any doubts or reservations, don't go. That's my advice.

If you don't have to go, if you're not compelled to, I wouldn't because it's very challenging. Yeah, it's not an easy trip. Not an easy place at all. Yeah. And also, it's not a... It's much more difficult to find, you know, reptiles in general down there. Even like little lizards, you don't see a ton of, of herb life down there. The density is very low, it seems like.

Yep, few and far between. And then, but the ones you do find are very exciting because of that, you know. And, you know, it's maybe a challenge. So the high risk, high reward type stuff. But, yeah. So we got a few of those, a little foreshadowing. but yeah and so that as as i said nick had turned up a nice black sale on the way up pretty early in the morning good to get a boost of seeing something um and then there wasn't much going and then as we were

heading out uh so paul durin had joined us for that day out in the field which is always it's actually really instructive and fun to have someone who's out there for the first time and then it's sort of a barometer of, okay, how bad actually is this? And he held up really well, did great, it was a super fun guy, absolutely would be happy to go out with him again. So he had seen a snoring whip snick that I had essentially walked over because we were engrossed in conversation and I had to make up for it and five minutes later. I saw one posted up right underneath the tree and between he and I, our collective effort, I was able to give it the grab. And then he recorded me getting bit in the face by it so that when we eventually came out to the

Korah, you know, dried blood on my face or whatever, which is a good, cool, you know, visual presentation. And Paul sent me the video and it sent it to Justin and Justin got a chuckle out of it. I was very confused, though, because I didn't realize Paul was with you guys. And so I'm like, did Rob send this to Paul so he could post it to our group chat with me and Rob and Paul? I'm like, I was very confused. But then it was all clarified once I got out there, he guys told me that Paul had been

with you guys. So I missed out herping with him. So that was unfortunate. But glad you guys got to go out with him. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. I really like that. Yeah, it was super nice. Yeah.

So that's, he was good to good. I think we got a second mole on the way up too. And yeah, had some good conversations. But do you already mention your first little incident, Rob? How that was a bit of a theme, getting bit in the face. Oh, no, I didn't. When we were on, on the first day, or after the blue spec, we'd gone over to Brandon.

and we're checking out, playing with his stuff. And the very last animal that we looked at was Tannenbor. And Brandon seemed to, I thought he needed to clean, you know, it seemed fine, but he seemed like he wanted me to remove the snake so that he could clean the enclosure as the last one that he was going to clean before went and picked up Phil from the airport. In hindsight, evidently, that wasn't what he was asking. He was content with the way that it was. was, which is how I would have been. But, yeah, so it's probably a, you know, three-footer, something like really nice looking. And I got it out fine, but in the process then of manipulating it, expecting him to change the cage,

and instead he was just staring at me like I had three heads, the snake then bit me right on the side of the face, just missing my, what, right eye. And then, yeah, so the whip snake the next day bit me right between me. I'm beautiful, beautiful aim. So, yeah, made it, made it through very fortunate as to both. But it's been, I've been bit in the face before, but it's been probably a couple of years. So, yeah, two in two days was something. Nice.

That's, yeah, it's a good way to start out the trip, a couple bites to the face. Maybe that was me not being there to keep, you know, doing silly things. Oh, cool. Yeah. Some, a real, you know, palencio's treat. A real palencio. So the next day, right, Justin, you were still en route. This is when you were going to do your sidelineer adventure. We took an off day and wanted to go find a price high for Phil and Nipper. And so, well, but first, right, we had run over to try and find clobbs in a different spot.

Nick again, coming through Clutch, pulled that off, got some cool photos. And then, yeah, we went up to, you know, got high in the Chirikawa's, applied Dustin's proven methods. And the only unfortunate bit was there was a fellow up there that at least I, Nick, you know, I think sort of vaguely recognized him, but certainly I did, acting strangely, that, we'd seen when we'd gone up during IHS and we talked about that on a previous episode and he gave some context or explainer for what he was doing there

and he was a little bit thrown off when I said yeah I saw you a month ago which was about three weeks longer in the past than his stated story put the wind up of him a little bit and yeah so that was interesting and it just you know again we talked about that at IHS

we'll probably have Doc Zach Lofman come on to chat through some of that. I know he, during IHS, expressed some thoughts and interest on a topic around entrapment and sort of how, you know, the legal process around some of this stuff and all that. So I'll probably leave that a little bit, but the upshot is we wound up having to get out of there a little bit sooner than we would have liked just to feel totally comfortable around the situation. We weren't doing anything problematic, but you just want to be super cautious around that.

So, yeah, and I think then that gets us to the day that you turned up, and we've gone back down to the Palencios. So, Doster and Nick, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, it goes to say how hard the Palisios are. I mean, we had to pull a tree out of the road that morning. So just even driving into it can be a challenge. Yeah. It's nice that Brandon was prepared to pull the tree. We don't like to mess around.

Right. It's just him and I in the mountain. That's something to, I mean, that's a good lesson to take from that is, you know, if you're driving down there, be ready with gear and, you know, smart. Either have a little electric chainsaw and or, yeah, the winch to get it done. So good on you guys. And that was, again, totally different even from, you know, the day before the day before, right? Yeah.

Yeah, no, we had kind of, Nick and I at least kind of went off course what our plan was for that day, but we found a really good looking canyon that just kept looking better and better. Yeah, I initially, I don't know, I kind of went in with the mindset of I wanted to see every canyon just to be able to say that I've seen every canyon to, you know, be able, for the sake of comparison. and so this was one prior, this was one nearby, the one we had been in before, but it was a little bit, looked a little bit tighter, looked a little bit like potentially like it could produce, potentially not. And so I kind of just started heading up there. And then, yeah, and Dustin and I, thankfully Dustin ended up joining me because I don't think I would have gone nearly as far if Dustin wasn't there. And yeah, saw some really, really good habitat. Yeah. Yeah, totally fair. So Brandon, Nipper, and I, Phil had fortunately wound up staying closer to the vehicle. Someone on a motorcycle had wound up turning up. And as I conveyed to Phil, you know, you're not just passing through when you're going there.

I don't know what their purpose was or whatever, but he was really interested in, you know, our... That was the next day, but yeah, because there were... Yeah, it was all, it was just two of the cars. Yeah, that was the next day that night. Yeah. That was the next day night. But, yeah, to be fair, like having Phil and Nipper down by the cars was very fortuitous because, yeah, this motorcycle guy passed through.

He parked kind of away from the cars, went up, even went up a trail to make sure that nobody was coming down the trail. And then he went over and proceeded to kind of look in the cars. And that's when Nipper and Phil realized that, that what he was doing and so they went up and kind of chased him off basically he saw them coming and took off and yeah that's not suspicious at all it's really good that they were there because that wouldn't have been great you know okay well I had that a little bit wrong but the yeah so nipper Brandon and I had gone um same idea that you talked about neck of just trying to

check out every canyon check out every spot and drop in and uh go ways and see how it looks. And so yeah, we had, we had done that, though Nipper, who I love for embracing the Jug Brother lifestyle, unfortunately, we had picked up some evidently defective jugs so that he had barely even tapped it. I don't, you know, and then I actually wound up doing it with that same one later on in the week with that same brand. There's a, on the fold, on the bottom of the jug, it's obviously very weak. So that if you tapped that. thing in just the right way it'll start leaking and that's not a place where you want to lose half your jug to water dripping out and so that was the state nipper was in um fortunately you know

the three of us together we were able to keep them through um name and shame what brand was that so we avoid getting that yeah i don't remember but uh yeah yeah it was uh not ideal the funny thing is I had actually, you know, used it to hold myself off a rock and different things. And mine had held up on that first day. So it must have been a certain angle or something that caused problems. But anyway, Nipper was running out of water and didn't want to go back the way we had come. That initial in-rout is, you know, certainly all of us have done that several times now. And it's doable, but it's pretty brutal.

Anytime you're in those corners, you're as much bouldering as anything. And there's some verticality to it and all those things. So he was insistent that we should do a, we should loop it rather than do an out and back. And all the more so with the water. So we went out the way that Justin, you and I, you know, we had, or we had out and back through that can. Union. And I was like, I remember what that was like. And I wasn't too anxious to do it again. Again, it's just so choked with sort of moderate growth vegetation that came in after the fires. And the boulders that are in that wash. It's just, it's a real mess. It's doable.

It's not an enjoyable hike. Yeah. Well, I think the main thing is there's no shade at all. It's just. Exactly right. It roast out the whole time. It was a little better when it was a high of 88 or 90 than when we had done it. It was a high of 98 or. 100, but only just, to be honest. And you still have a big hill at the end or at the 70% mark or whatever. So there were some really cool spots. So it was definitely worth doing, absolutely. But, oh, and I had taken, this was kind of the funny bit, is there was one spot that I particularly wanted to see. And Brandon and Nipper, in light of Nipper's water situation, decided they were going to keep going.

one. And it was a reminder to me that when the security detail leaves, which is how I took Brandon and Nipper on that day, you know, between Nipper's physicality, Brandon with his physicality and a gun, you know, I was like, okay, well, at least I have these two. We can help out should things go astray. I said, no, I'm going to strike out on my own and then I'll follow him down. And I made it about 500 feet. And based on sound and discussion and things, ran into a bear who was equally surprised to have someone coming up that canyon. So I took that as by the fair warning to go catch up with the security detail and come out with those guys instead of messing around in the middle of nowhere. Probably a wise decision.

We don't want to have Bob Rock end up as a bear snack. Yeah, I think it was that same day I thought I had heard a bear too in that canyon Nick and I were in. And you also had a big brand as well, right? Or was that brand? That was Brandon. That was, yeah, and that Canyon you were in that day. Yeah, there you go. Cool.

I don't know. I get excited about seeing bears. I like to chase them down and give them a hug or something. I think that's more your thing than mine, to be honest with you. It's just a black bear. What are they going to do to you? Cool. Well, and then once you guys got out and we're driving down, that was a nice little find on the drive.

out. Yeah, that was after you and I had left for old days. Yep, unfortunately. But yeah, I guess common venture to account it. Absolutely. Yeah. Go ahead, Nick. What did you get? Oh, yeah. So, I mean, after having, you know, we saw some great habitat that day, but was notably depopridden snakes. And on the way out, Rob, Nipper, and Phil were in the car ahead of us. And me, and Brandon were in the car behind. And as they were descending the mountain west, Brandon, I was on my phone,

which, you know, not expecting to see anything. And Brandon saw a little black line crossing the road. And he just goes, snake, snake, snake. And I didn't know what was going on. And I just, yeah,

flailed out of the car and nearly missed it. And like, in hindsight, it wasn't a whip snake or anything, but still nearly missed it. It was booking it. But, yeah, my lifer, regal ringneck across the road. It was literally maybe 50 feet behind Rob's car. And we just saw it go across the road right behind him in between our cars. And that was, I was really, really stoked about that. That was really cool. That's a cool snake. I don't know. I mean, I guess ringnecks are common in the East Coast and in middle America. But yeah, out in the West. They're common here too. I mean, it was, you know, we get the Pacifics. And, um, But just having heard the reputation, and even though this wasn't, you know, as big of a monster as I think they can get, it was they still like, they have a much bulkier head.

They look a lot less like the like the little worms that we get out here. And like they look like a proper, a proper sink. Yeah. I mean, Dustin's probably laugh and they're probably not too terribly rare in Arizona. Hey, no, I do not come across them frequently. Yeah. Any day with the diodotinus is a good day. Right. And we did see a, Jordan and I were driving in, I think, just before last year's trip.

And on that portal road, there was a big DOR, huge, like, regales that was really sad to see a DOR. But, yeah, it was nice to see a living one. So thank you guys for snagging that. And, you know, that was cool. Then some really good tacos down in Douglas. great stuff. So that's a place that I could see hitting any time I'm down in that area. Oh, yeah.

It's all reliable. Guapo's or what is it called? Yeah. El guappos or something like that. Guerro, El Guerro? Wero, yeah. The white guy. I think that's what Wero means if my Spanish is correct.

Yeah. And then we all kind of went basically our separate ways. Three vehicles moving through from Douglas back up to portal area. And I don't know, I was with Nipper and we found some, you know, cool toads. He got his lifer, Sonoran Desert Toad, and that was exciting. They're such cool toads. I don't know. It was a pretty good sized one.

I mean, a little smaller. Not like a gargantuan one, but he was pretty happy. That was the night that the storm was coming through, especially in that open plane until you get to Chiracahuas, it was especially for us. We were the last one. Phil and I were the last ones heading down the trek, and it was sideways rain trying to blow you into the field

and certainly lock in sort of adventure. And then, yeah, it turned it into amphibians on our end, although then I had assumed, presumed, mistakenly, that Nipper would be able to guide you to where we were staying. It was a place we would stay before, Justin, but, you know, absent the address, I assumed between you having stayed there previously and Nipper having spent at that point three or four nights there that you could probably figure it out. Fortunately, when you guys hadn't turned out, I said, oh, maybe I need to send them the address and actually. I was, yeah, I was close. I went on the second road instead of the first road where it was. And so, yeah, I just missed it. Just was a little backwards, but we came close.

So we got a little extra cruising time that night. Yeah, you came up on a group that had something really cool. Yeah, that was a fun stop there. It wasn't our fine, but there was a couple of guys out there. And we stopped and asked, hey, what did you find? And I guess you guys had seen them previously in the week. But two nice guys, but they had a healer. They said, a hela monster.

And that was a little bit of a surprising. I was thinking, you know, baby diving back or something. And we said, well, would it be okay if we checked it out? And they're like, of course, it's not ours. It's nature. We're like, oh, I like that attitude. So, yeah, they let us sit and take pictures of it as well. And we're very patient and kind.

I guess it was their fourth hela of their trip. So they'd seen three already, you know. It's like kind of crazy. And I mean, yeah, we've spent a lot. lot of time on those roads and this is the first one i've seen since the late 90s so i yeah i haven't seen a heal in the area for a very long time and uh and you know granted we haven't spent as much time in the low desert as we have in the mountains so that's part of it but yeah just unlucky in some ways yeah some consolation before the trip i was working through it someone was asking me

i we dustin you probably even more so i've been there six times in the last three or four years and have yet to see one down there. We've seen the Utah stuff, but, uh, yeah, that's just the way it goes, I suppose. Yeah. It's, it's weird how that works, I guess, but, and, you know, maybe they, they were just road cruising, it sounded like. And so maybe that's part of it. Yeah.

That's where we had seen them as well. That was actually a pretty humorous. It was sort of the same sort of interaction the day before, either the day or two days before. We had, oh, I'd seen a, Bill was convinced it was trash, but it wound up being the smallest longnose that I've ever seen that we'd cruised on that road. Probably what, guys, five, six inches, something like that. I would assume a neonate from this year. And pulled over for that, and then very shortly thereafter, we saw their car that was stopped. And they were out looking at it, but obviously couldn't quite identify what it was.

And so juvenile gopher snakes, right, are more, have more of a dichromatic color scheme than they do, than the Sonoran gophers do is with size, right? They develop more of that coloration. So they was very confused about it, and it'll sit there and rattle its tail and coil up and all that. So I asked them what they had, and they didn't know. And so I had gotten out and looked at it and said, oh, you have a baby gopher snake or maybe it's a yearling. And so I reached down and grabbed it. and they were taken aback based on what they assumed it was. And I then handed it to him or attempted to hand it to him and said,

yeah, no, it's fine. It's just a gopher snake. The guy was very reluctant, but I gave him credit that he accepted the snake that I handed to him. That's cool. Yeah. So, yeah, it was... They were interesting guys. But yeah, maybe, you know, I think that road,

they've turned up a lot of snakes on that road, but it's often very much the same things, so I don't look at it very often. Right. Yeah. So it was really nice to kind of hang out with those guys for a bit and take pictures of the Gila and then kind of went on its way and we let it go. So we also saw a longnosed snake and a great plains towed on the drive, which was great. So it's nice to catch up with Nipper and chat about some stuff. So, yeah, fun to have him out from England and also get him finally get him some kind of. copies of the book he co-authored.

Yeah, so good times. And then back to the Airbnb, meet up with you guys, hear about your cruise back, and then go shine some black lights around the Airbnb to find some cool critters. But that was good times. Yeah, I think on our trip back we'd seen just typical atrox scoots, gophers. It was a pretty heavy gopher snake. Like, I think we'd seen more gopher snakes on this trip than I'd ever seen out there. Yeah. Kind of cool.

Yeah, which is interesting. Remember last year, Dustin, there was a lot of conversation around not really seeing a lot of them. Who, what's his name? The professor that was out of Bob's place. Gordon Chewitt? No. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Wolf King. We were talking to him at Bob's place last year, and he'd remarked that during the survey work that he had his students doing over the summer, that they hadn't turned up many.

And, you know, it was a question relative to the conditions and those sorts of things. He was expressing some concern over it. So, yeah, this was in stark contrast to last year. Yeah, that's what I had noticed, too, is the past few years, not many, at least baby juvenile go. on the roads. But I think with the amount of rain that we had this year, they were, they were definitely moving. Definitely breathing. Right. Well, then got up the next morning and did some road cruising out looking for hognows. Didn't see too much. Well, we, I guess. Box turtles. Yeah, you guys. Those the morning, we did a bunch of walking for Modestum, too.

Yeah. Yeah. I think was that the That was maybe the next morning that, yeah, we looked for modestum. We didn't see much out there, though. It was a few whip tails and things like that. Yeah, some cool cactus at least. Yeah, yeah. The Christmas, it was like a really thin kind of. Oh, that Christmas Choya.

Yeah, Christmas Choya was cool. Yeah, some cool Cochee Maya and Mammal area. Yeah, so that was cool. But, yeah, unfortunately, still. Still on my list of things to see. Yeah. I'd really like to see that some more phranosoma species, but very cool. Hornleaders.

It just goes back to spending time in the low desert. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yep. I mean, I don't know. Again, it seems like we've spent a lot of time kind of in, in that area, at least, in the low desert areas around there. And, you know, in Heila habitat and just not seeing Heela or many other things. but only one coral snake in the last, you know, several trips.

So kind of few and far between for some of those things. But always good to get out there and look. And then out again with a big, a little pit stop or a big pit stop. It was a big pit. So got to see another snoring gopher snake on the drive out to get into the Pelancio's. Really good sized or, you know, pretty big. Animal, right? Yeah.

Wasn't shy of biting most people. I don't think he, you wanted to taste me, but I think he got you guys. Yeah, he got me. I think I just got a tooth out of my finger. Oh, really? Nice. I love that. Yeah, his retribution for us not hitting him.

Yeah. The interesting thing, those Adams Valley slash Palencia's ones, they do have that weird neck pattern. Yeah. It's pretty consistent. Mm-hmm. They're nice looking though. They're really good-looking snakes. Yeah.

And I say weird. It's overstating it unless you're really specific into seeing lots of them and saying, oh, that's interesting that there's this seeming common feature. Right. Very cool. A little unique characteristic for that area. Yeah. Absolutely.

Then back into the Pels. And of course, I don't know. I'm wondering. when Nick's going to use up all his luck here. He's found some dang good stuff. Well, and before we even got to that, right? So there's, and I remember this, you know, being a kid in the late 80s, early 90s,

there was a lot of conversation around Africanized killer bees. Oh, yeah. And I, you know, I suppose being in Colorado, unfortunate that that then has passed from my mind. You know, I think it was when I was living in Southern California that there was the discussion around that. This was the thing. And I sort of took it as a passing fat of news coverage of the 80s. But talking to these folks, it sounds like that's not the case.

It's alive and well. It's alive and well in Southern Arizona. And, yeah, as we experienced. Surprise. Yeah. Yeah. That was crazy. So, yeah, we were just getting ready to set off on the hike.

And Rob and Nick were going to take a trail. Yeah, to try. at sea hip that made it easier to get into the areas we were interested in. And so we were parked by this tree. I think Brandon had his car running. I turned mine off. So I'm not sure I contributed to it. Yeah, Brandon, yeah, it was running.

Brandon's was running, putting out some fumes. And Nipper was spraying your aerosolized sunscreen. So I don't know if that helped. Yeah. But all of a sudden, yeah, the bees had had enough of our presence there. And there was this just a beehive or something in this tree that was right by the road and just started coming after everybody and who got it first. Bill got stuck on the face while he was standing on the road, right?

So we all ran to the vehicles and I'm feverishly trying to turn on the car so I can roll up the windows because my two front windows were down. And that gave enough time for another B to fly into the car across. He bypassed me and went straight for Nipper in the back seat and stung him on the arm and then flew back out across me again. So I don't know. I guess he used up his stinger, but he got out of there. So I got out of there unscathed, and I don't think we trapped any bees in the car after I rolled up the window.

So that was fortunate. But yeah, they were not messing around, and they went straight for the jugular, it seemed. But it was, where Nipper and Phil, the only casualties? I think so. Okay. Yeah. And those I, oh, sorry. No, go ahead.

Oh, I just, I just remember saying, I think before, you know, Rob, you mentioned not having really heard about it for a while, I listened to a podcast a little while back. I think it was it was crime pays, but botany does, which is just a funny podcast. But where he was talking about it, and so it was in the back of my mind because I was like, oh, he interviewed these guys from southern Arizona from the Tucson area who routinely deal with removing these killer bee colonies. and they were telling stories about people who hike up into the mountains and then have to run five miles back to their car, bees still chasing them. And then the bees are still chasing them in their car down the road. So as soon as Phil got stung, I think I was, it was a fairly vertical trail and I was, I was gone because I just didn't. I didn't want that smoke. Yeah.

Yeah, Nick and Rob ran up the trail, basically. We wondered why they got up there so quick. but they had bees on their tail. Yeah. Then the big hike up and over again, you know, and the trail seemed to pay off and was a little easier. At least, you know, there wasn't even older the whole way. Yeah.

And then, yeah, a little bit of the way. And then getting into good habitat and Nick strikes again with another big find. Yeah. And initially, I think I initially went on. off and checked something else and found a black tail. And then as I was coming back to join you guys, we all kind of met up at the top of the ridge that would descend down into the canyon. And we all kind of spread out and we're heading down the ridge and talk about like, oh, this is really good club habitat and no, wouldn't it be nice and whatever. And I just saw,

I didn't see what it was at first, but I just saw like a serpentine motion in the grass going down the slope. And, you know, heart jumped into my throat a little bit. and then I saw the bands and it was, you know, any other place, well, I mean, it was my second, second ever pyro, so that was really cool regardless. But any other place, I don't think it would have been nearly as as exciting. But in the Pels, for the amount of work that we'd done, it was really cool to see that a fairly large, again, second ever, so I don't really have a good frame of reference, pyro. Yeah, just on the crawl, it was fairly cool to the touch. So my assumption is it had just come out of wherever it was hanging out during the heat of the day. And yeah, I mean, I was I was really stoked to see that.

It was an awesome snake. Yeah, very beautiful snake. Part rubber boa. They had a totally blunt missing of a tail. I don't think I had any of a tail, did it? Didn't it terminate in its cloaca pretty much? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I think that's probably the third or fourth most exciting snake there. So, you know, depending on how you take it. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, another great find and excitement. And then, yeah, we kind of took our turns, taking pictures of it. So that was, and then getting bites and chiggers and all that good stuff. I still have a bunch of, I look like I've got some disease or something. I went and played water polo.

And I was- People must be concerned. Well, yeah, right. It was probably more in water polo where I have less on. But, yeah, they just, you know, these open wounds and soars all over my legs and arms. Like, what is going on with you, dude? Yeah. Is Justin working with monkeypox?

Okay. Yeah. Hey, I found this vial labeled smallpox on it. So, yeah, good times, good times. Laying in the leaves is not a. a good thing unless you're taking a picture of a really cool snake. So, but yeah, great find. I was very excited.

That's my first pyro in the, in the area as well. You know, despite all the time in habitat, I just haven't unfortunate enough to see one. So, yeah, life are for for all of us. So that's well, except Dustin. Yeah, in the range, but yeah. Well, and if you want to include, you know, old subspecies, I've only seen a wood and So that would be pyro, pyrot, for what it's worth, that would be my first. You're first to block eye?

Yeah, exactly. That's what they are. Yeah, the old controversy. We won't get into taxonomy. Nick and I discuss that much to add nauseam in the vehicles, driving around road herp in the next day. Opinions are fun to have. Yep. And then the hike out that night was a little treacherous for Dustin.

He almost stepped on two different molose on the way out. These black tails were just perched up or in really nice ambush positions and difficult to see until you're almost on top of them. Yeah, especially when you're walking through knee-high grass. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice to have a stick or something in front of you to use kind of like a, you know, you know, know, to scope out the area ahead of you so you don't step on something. And even that only does so much. And that grass is that long, it's just, yeah, fortunately, they seem to be very tolerant.

Yeah. Neither of them rattled, right? No, yeah, they just stayed there. I walk right by. I was going to say all the ones we hiked during the day, or at least I've seen during the day, found, I saw them and they rattled. Like, I don't really know which one happened first. So being nighttime, maybe they're less prone to rattle makes them a bit more like a landmine. Right. Yeah. That's a little sketchy when they're not rattling. Yeah.

Yeah, the one I'd seen during the day wasn't rattling. It just was, but it was going on the opposite direction. Obviously it perceived me, and I saw the movement as it was moving away from the path that I was walking towards. So again, in that same context, they're not, I think those in particular were fortunate that they're not trying to, they're not trying to bite you. Nick came pretty close to one as well on the hike over, right? Oh, yeah, right. The one right before the pyro. Yeah, then a few feet of that thing. So, yeah.

I think I stood over it. Fortunately, no bites, no, no issues. So that's always good. Yeah. Goal number one for the trip. All mouths out of all venomous, or all appendages out of all venomous mouths. Exactly. And then, yeah, high.

taking out and driving back. We drove back the other way. We didn't drive through Douglas that time. And it was pretty good night. We saw quite a few things, the typical Western Diamondbacks and the Mojave rattlesnakes. And interestingly, we were the first car for a little while. And we kept seeing great horned owls on the road. There were three. Us too, yeah. Yeah. It was really bizarre. They were just, hanging out in the road and they'd kind of wait until you got a little closer and then you fly off. And, yeah, one landed in a, it was like a yucca or a, one of the stocks that, you know, was coming up. And so he was sitting there, but he was looking the other way. And we were just sitting there watching him taking pictures and stuff. And I did a great horned owl hoot and he turned right around like immediately like eyes on us. Like he was like, what the heck?

They speak my language. But yeah, it was pretty cool to see those. I think on the way out that night, we got Nick's lifer Veritas, which is a nice example of one, too. That's cool. Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah. And then the couple, each of the cars found a desert king, which was, yeah, younger ones, really beautiful, nice yellow on them.

So that was cool. I think ours was a little nicer the one. Yeah. The funny bit with that was that was that. You know, you had seen it, and I hadn't seen where it was. So I'd then gotten out of the car and caught it. And, you know, run further. And so, you know, yeah, it started to turn my head and, you know, fortunately,

I was able to close the gap pretty quickly. But, yeah, it was that that's always interesting, right, when one person sees it. And it's always you, eagle-eyed just them. Well, I think driving helps, you know, when you're driving and you're paying attention to, you know, so you don't hit anything. And, yeah, you see it. But yeah, it's weird sometimes where you, in the passenger side. So clear to you.

Yeah. You just don't. The difference at angle or whatever it is. But, yeah, we were able to get it done, which was good. And, yeah, I would agree with you, Justin, that ours was the nicer of the two. Yeah, I think I bled for ours. Did you? Yeah, I saw it was not a crow on the road.

So, like, okay, this thing is going to get off fast. So I just opened the door and start to get out. as Brandon's still driving and him slamming on the brakes, me bouncing off the door, my flip-lop like folded over. I was trying to run towards it too and went completely down, but we still got it. Yeah. Yeah, luckily I think I hopped out at the same time because I was just as eager to see it. But yeah, it had a bit of an easier time getting out of the car, I guess.

Nick, have you seen Desert Kings before? No, that was, well, that was my lifer. And that was the thought I had actually Because we had seen that you guys got the Splendida And then we passed And I was like, huh, I wonder if I'm counting that And then we got ours and so it wasn't questions So yeah

Then we saw another gopher as well A pretty good sized one Really pretty reds on it But more toads We got a green toad One of the Which species is that Dustin? That's a great question

That's Tobelis. Ableau. Yeah. That's right. The Chihuahuan, green toad? Yeah. Really, they're always fun to see, of course.

Yep. Good, good. And then it kind of dried up, and we didn't see much. Yeah, I think we'd gotten, you know, some more Mojavis. Right. Yeah. Atrox, gophers. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, by that point we had swapped and you guys were going first, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think after that this one dude that we saw, it was pretty dry. Yeah. Yeah, there wasn't much much on the road the rest of the way. That was a long, long ways to go without seeing anything.

Yeah. The way it goes sometimes. Yep. Anyone who herps enough has probably experienced that where you just have a dry spell and it makes a lot more difficult. Yeah. Then the next morning, more hog-nose searching. Nick and I ran across a blind snake that was D-O-R. Just on the side of the road, it was kind of crazy.

Well, yeah, that was, that was, I'm thoroughly impressed with your ability to spot things after that. I'd heard the rumors, but that was, yeah, that was pretty remarkable. Yeah, it comes in handy once in a while. But then other times, like, somebody's like, oh, there's a gecko. Where? Where? You know, so sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

Nick and I got a nice-sized atrocks and a very small patch nose over. Yeah, kind of on that. I look, that was deserticola. That was the whatever. Is it big Ben patch nose or something? It's the eastern one. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Wasn't the hexalepsis. No. Cool. Yeah. Both are possible in that area, so it is a little confusing until you get a chance to look it up and make sure. Well, I feel like once you've seen both, then they're harder to key out relative to books and both, you know, the sort of distinguishing marks as opposed to when you see them in hand, they're actually quite different in my feeling. Dustin, I don't know if you agree, but to me, they're quite different when you're holding them. kind of they're they're pretty i don't know pretty variable in there and where they can be found too so

that doesn't help yeah phil and i had cruised uh or come upon one that was dead on the road which was i bring up because um he was confused as to what it was you know between the two and all so he had handed to me and then i had intended to throw it out my driver's side window but my driver's side window was rolled up so i just want to punching the window and drive it A dead steak in the car. Yeah, that's what you want. That's good stuff. Fortunately, I retrieved it.

We didn't leave it for the next customer. Yeah. Then you guys made one of the biggest finds of the trip, which was the breakfast burrito spot. Yeah, on our way out, but on our way out, you know brandon and i we got out a little later than the rest of you guys and we're like oh let's just go let's go up the mountain real quick maybe sent a cold as we moving nothing there so we decided to meet you guys out on the flats and uh yeah they're on the on the 80 on the highways a little hog nose sprawled out so it's pretty awesome it's been a few years since i've seen one so and rob this is a pretty good one

for you yeah that was very important to me that's something that that was the last u.s. tetrhodon form, depending on what you do with gloody, that I had to see. So, yeah, I was over the moon. Yeah, just the satisfaction, the joy. Yeah, really cool. You know, and it was great even, you know, you guys had taken a bunch, taking pictures, and then I had taken pictures as well. And then it reached a point where I was trying to, who did we just talk to?

was talking about embracing the moment. I think it was Chris and Nate when they were on talking about, you know, really just trying to be present. And sitting in the shade just being very present with that snake. That's cool. As a beautiful reminder of why we do it and that sort of stuff. That it's one thing to check something off a list. And it's a whole other to really sit there and embrace it. So, yeah, that's something that's been years in the making.

I'm glad to hear that you and Brandon were so excited for it because I certainly was. So I appreciate the. Appreciate the gift, man. That's beautiful. It really doesn't get much better than those little guys. Yeah, they're very cool snakes. Yeah, I don't know. Might be a hater on them in the hobby, but, man, seeing them in the wild is so cool.

Yeah. And they can go from playing dead to being super spirited to being, you know, equivalent to some fifth generation pet over the course of five minutes. And that's part of what I love about them. Yeah, I really love their colors and pattern. just have such kind of muted tones, more like greenish, you know, really pretty, subtle, pretty colors and pattern. Yeah. Yeah.

Almost like a faded. Yeah. For that Mexican hog nose look. Yeah. You know, in terms of that background, the contrast, the amount of patterning, all those things. Always good when it's a lifer for it to look like what you're hoping that form looks like.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I do admit I've been looking online to see. if there are any available. Not that I think I should buy any, but yeah, they're really cool snakes.

They are cool. Yeah. It's great to release him, take those photos and let him go. Yeah, right. Exactly. Cool stuff. And then back into the tough spot,

the difficult mountain range. And again, on the drive-in, you know, it's always interesting. to see if you're, you know, going to see anything. I think we got another, oh, yeah, we got another gopher snake. It was as we were going down into one of those little water, you know, where the water goes across the road.

Just washed out the road a little bit. Yeah. I'm glad I saw it because it was, yeah, not very visible from when you start going down. And then I'm like, oh, gopher. So, and it just kind of hung out. Didn't really make tracks. But, and we met up with a, friend there, so that was cool.

Yeah, Christian Diedrich, who had been on the podcast a couple months ago, had moved down to Tucson, and I told him on the front end that we were coming down, and he said, hey, yeah, I'll want to, he hadn't been to the Palencia before. And so he said, hey, if you, you know, if you're out there on Friday or Saturday, let me know and love to make it work and meet up with you and check it out and all those things. And I think it speaks to, so Dustin and I right now have been 12 days out there in the last year. And, you know, you two getting close to that number as well. That speaks to what we've learned that, well, Brandon turned up, to my mind, the second best snake that you can find in the range, the bandy-rack rattled snake. And Christian left the whole thing, you know, far too chipper and alive, right? relative to all his time and suffering, we put into the death. So I think that mostly speaks to how much we've learned about the place and how to kind of approach it and what to do,

that he wasn't, didn't leave feeling defeated and nearly dead. He got to see the second best night there and survived in really good shape. Yeah, that was quite a moment for Brandon, especially when we were hiking around. I mean, we just hear this, you know, yelling across the hills. I'm surprised that, you know, people in Douglas couldn't hear him. But it was pretty awesome. He was pretty psyched to find that and see it. And we were glad that it hung around and we were able to see it as well because it was a beautiful snake.

And talk about, you know, that just fitting in with your rocks. You know, that perfectly on the rock and go with that black contrast, the big female. Yeah, beautiful. It was a great find. Yeah. And it was really cool, too, that it was kind of found in a similar context to the pyro the day before because it is, you know, it does kind of speak to that. Like, we're honing in, honing in on a method, honing in on a search strategy and getting closer. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's definitely not Brandon's first rodeo when it comes to finding clobbs, but, you know, in that mountain range. You see him there. Yeah. That's a big, big find. So that was really exciting. And I'm glad he was so excited. You know what I mean?

Like that's always good to see that excitement, even though it's probably is what, 50th club or more, you know? Yeah. You know, I mean, anything that comes out of there is it's well deserved. Yeah. Yeah.

And I mean, I always like that excitement. Even if you've seen a bunch of them, you know, and you know, granted, it's a rare thing to see him there. But still to just not be like, you know,

it's a clob. I've seen club. I've seen big. and better, but this one was, yeah, very cold to see. Well, I do. It was a good-looking snake, too. I mean, it was not a, it was not, not ugly. And it was cool to see one that was notably different from the ones I, you know,

regardless of which ones you prefer. It was cool to see one that was notably different. And, you know, I had that really nice pink in the face that, I mean, pink throughout, but you could really notice it in the face. It was just, yeah, still need to see a male. But, yeah. Yeah, but just the same colors of the rock and kind of what you'd hope to see out there. And yeah, those black bands were just killer.

So very exciting. And, of course, a nice little photo shoot. And, you know, rattlesnakes are pretty amenable to photoshoots. But, man, it was really cool watching Christian. He just kept finding stuff. Like, we were in one little area where there were these rocks and he was looking under some rocks. And like under every rock there was a Behirose centipede, just like six rocks in a row. He's like, oh, there's another one.

Oh, what's going on here? This is very weird, you know. Kind of cool. That was one of my favorite finds actually from the night we'd gone the other way was Dustin, you'd pull out the black light and seeing a scolopendra on the road, put that black light on. Yeah, I didn't quite realize how they glowed. Oh, really?

Especially watching it run. Yeah. Yeah, it was like it was very mesmerizing watching the legs go. Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the other finds of that night was the, again, Christian, like, looked under a rock and found it, like, hatchling whiptail lizards or something. Oh, cool. Came over with a handful of dirt and three whiptail babies on top of it and then went and put them back down under the rock.

But that was pretty cool to see that. So, yep. And then we drove out. We went our, or that was pretty much it for the night, right? We didn't see much else after that. Yeah, I think we went. That's the night we went separate ways. Yeah.

Yeah. And we didn't see too much other than the DOR, Western Diamondback. And gray fox. That was cool. cool. Phil and I saw a fox kind of run across the road and actually run up and then back towards us and then like right as it got to the car kind of jumped off the side of the road. So we got pictures of it and things like that. And then saw a snoring desert toad, but lost it. It would have been Phil's lifer, but we couldn't locate where it went. So not sure.

But then Rob pulled out his giant helicopter. Yeah, I was coming down. Yeah, I was coming down with Christian. With Christian. Give him some company on the ride. So as we were going down to Dougie. And yeah, so you guys were eye shining something. And I said, oh, well, we can solve this problem.

And, yeah, with the anti-helicopter flashlight, we were able to light up the hillside. Yeah. It was making a tight loop. I don't know if it was a fox or a ringtail, whatever it would be. It was running like four foot up and then making a circle back to where it had been. Yeah, but it was kind of staying in the same area. Yeah, it would return to that exact spot. It was crazy.

So whatever it was, I think it was a mountain lion, so I'm going to count. Kind of crazy to see that. And, yeah, kind of slow after. that and but the taco place was open so we enjoyed some some good food well we kept them open i think we got there five minutes from close we said are you sure we're good and they said absolutely and then they proceeded to close down and turn over all the tables around us but yeah yeah they they held open for us and it was good yeah and gas was 70 cents cheaper than than up in animus so worth worth the drive that way i guess for that um but we did

Went to that place four or five times, right, over the course of the week. So that was pretty good. Yeah. And then you guys had a fun beetle encounter back at the Airbnb. Oh, we did get a snoring or tow on the way home. Yeah, we got a, well, that's the night. Nipper almost fell off the side of the cliff. Oh, that's right.

Yeah, we forgot. He had a bit of Nip's. It's cool. Yes, indeed. I didn't hear that one. Yeah, Brandon Nipper and I were walking down in front of you guys, and Brandon was in front, and he had actually just, I don't know, maybe 20 feet before, turned up a blackneck artisank, which is very cool,

a little bit weird to see it at night. It speaks to how warm it still was that you're getting crepuscular into nocturnal activity out of them. But he had nearly gone over the side jumping for it, and that made me a little bit nervous, and sure enough, we didn't get, you know, 20 feet further. Nipper had a rock turn on him, and he started to go over. And Brandon, Johnny on the spot, went to grab him. And he seemed like he was going to hold on and keep them both up.

And then they both just went, which was certainly something to watch. But, yeah, Brandon wound it. They fell into sort of a mat of vegetation, which was really good. and then Brandon was Nipper's landing pad, so that was good for Nipper. And, unfortunately. Brandon's a good dude. Yeah, we were pretty low at that point, so that it was probably 12 feet, though. Not nothing.

Yeah. No, not nothing. And Nipper had the marks to prove. Did Brandon, he spill some blood as well? Maybe some little cousins, great. but I think he was pretty good. Yeah, Nipper's arm was opened up pretty well. I'm like, you're not getting in my car with that blood.

He went with you guys, so he bloodied up Brandon's car as a thank you. But, yeah. Again, yeah, it's hard to find somebody that's going to throw themselves, you know, try to grab you and then throw themselves under you so you have to be. What a good guy. Yeah, so now that turned out as well as it possibly could have. There was gear to be collected and whatever, and took five or, I think just kind of the shock of the event, right? It took five or ten minutes to kind of pull itself together.

Phil in the interim had turned up another eagle ring neck that was larger than the first. He was convinced that we wouldn't care and, you know, gave it its liberty before we came down. So good on him. But, yeah, it was good. No, not good on him. I was pretty pissed. Come on, Phil. No, he was like, Dustin, you're going to punch me.

I'm like, you don't have to worry about Dustin. You don't have to worry about me. With the us empowered into something else. That's right. Whispered to Dustin, punch him. Punch him. It's good stuff. Yeah, you know, I mean,

pretty all right night after that too, right? Yeah, a bunch of stuff on the way down. I mean, typical, you know, atrox scoot. You got a black tail? Oh, yeah, that's right. The double blacktail stop. Yeah, we had seen a snake on the side of the road and backed up to it and realized it was two snakes. Your photo was pretty great.

Me and Brandon, moving them off the road. Yeah. Good stuff. Yeah, they were pretty exceptional animals too, especially for your kind of the lower part. I would have expected to be born in a dozen ways. Yeah, two, and they were both very different looking too. Yeah, very different looking.

Yeah, don't know what they were doing. I was what as far as we could tell. Smaller, on the small side and maybe, I don't know, atypical for, I don't know, what is black club? reading season. Would it be this time of year? Yeah. Just be kind of the end of it.

Well, maybe they were just small adults, but they seemed small. From what I proceed. Are you rubbing something on your microphone there, Nick? A lot of noise coming from you. Oh. I was fiddling with a key.

Maybe I'll shut my mic off. Yeah. Yeah, a very modeled animal and a very clean patterned animal. So it's cool to see the difference. Nice. That's awesome. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't get sick of seeing black tails. They're really cool. Snakes, for sure. Only in high grass on inclined hillsides is it kind of, at night, is it a little bit. A little sketchy,

but still good to see them. Good to see them before you feel them. Hopefully they're just not there. Yeah. Then you guys were still awake, even though you had a, a beetle incident. Oh, yeah, a little female rhinoceros beetle flew into the,

followed me into the Airbnb, so save it for Phil to look at. Yeah, it was pretty impressive, uh, beetle. Yeah. Well, and then, uh, you guys, I think you, I fell asleep, but you guys stayed up till what? Daylight? 3 a.m.

Yeah, you just got to put in some work. It's okay. Then the morning doing a little more road cruising, hiking. And then, but yeah, during the night, you guys changed the plan. So you wanted to go back in the Pels. I was like, I booked it. Or I didn't book it, but I told my friend I was going to stay with him that night. And then I would be five hours closer to home.

So I was like, yeah, I'd probably not going to go into the Pels with you guys. So we parted our ways. that sorrow is what parting is such sweet sorrow what's how does that go anyway all the handshakes and crying was over i took off down south um i was going to go down to ruby road and go try to try my luck down there but um on the way it was just raining and just stormy the whole time and i was communicating with Christian to see if he wanted to join up and he's like, looks like it's going to be 60 degrees down there and, and rainy. So I don't know that you're going to see much. So I'm like, good point.

So I rerouted and went and cruised somewhere closer to Phoenix and saw, you know, quite a lot of the normal stuff. But I came across like a morphing spot for Sonoran Desert Toads. there was probably 60, 80 Sonoran Desert Toad morphlets, like just the smallest ones I've ever seen, like a couple inches long on this road. It was crazy. And I think it was like I think there was like a landfill or something. And so I just followed this road and it was just toad after toad after toad. It was pretty cool. There were some other species, but it was mostly Sonoran Desert toads.

And then I was thinking, I mean, this was supposed to be a good spot for sidewinders as well. And it was kind of funny because Christian, he was like, oh, you might try this road. And I'm like, okay, I was going to write it down. And I went into my notes and I had that name of the road written down already. So I'm like, oh, it must really be a good road. We both were thinking that same thing. And just saw, you know, a few atrocks and Mojavis and gophers, just kind of the typical stuff. didn't see anything too unique or anything.

But, oh, got a few banded geckos, so that was cool to saw three or four of those and just the towed road. So kind of fun. But, yeah, that was it for me. Had it had hung out with my friend. And I was feeling kind of under the weather. I developed some kind of cold. I don't know it was from Phil and Nipper Coffin all week or if it was from my daughter before I left, she was sick, and I think I got exposed. And so I took a couple sick days on Monday and Tuesday.

So I didn't even go to work earlier this week and just got back to work yesterday. So good times. So that was it for me. I drove home on Sunday and had that long drive and pretty uneventful. Which is always good. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we had, as you say, made the 3 a.m. plan to try the Pellas one more time on the trip. Always tough to leave that place in particular.

So we drove down there and it's all, you know, all week had been taking on some rain. So it was always a question of, okay, can we get through? Obviously, Brandon's vehicle. Well, suited for it. Mine less so. So we're kind of navigating. You guys were going first, testing it out. And then we reached one spot.

A preamble to that, we were sitting at the Airbnb and watched these giant storm clouds, like, moving across the Geriwis. Yeah, it was crazy. And, like, yeah, the lightning and the thunderheads, it was crazy. But sorry, back to, yeah. No, absolutely pertinent. So, yeah, we had. gotten down to kind of where it makes the bend and you start really taking some water when it's the season for it.

And as you guys had rightly pointed out, it's not only the sort of the depth of the depth of the water. It was a much increased breath. And the fact that it was actively filling at that point that was the most concerning aspect of the task, right? And it had some flow to it. It was not, you know, it was not just, oh, is the water moving? No, no, it's actively filling right now.

It's already added quite a bit of breath and we're actively filling. So maybe getting in wouldn't be a problem, like getting out might have any a worse problem. In the car, they would have been fine. The car that I, you know, had, yeah, it's a question mark to get across that. Where it's paved under, you're probably good. But given the increased breadth, you're definitely on to soil on either side of that. on that new stuff. And as it's new stuff, taken on that water, you just don't know how it's going to react

and respond to that. Yeah. So there were a couple of squishy spots even before, you know, we got that additional rain. So. Yeah. So I backed up initially. Again, it was how quickly is this thing going to fill, right? This is a concern.

And then we turned around and we're feeling kind of bummed about it. We thought maybe we would chase you down. And, um, but then Dustin. It had been in the conversation more generally, certainly not for that night. And we said, sure, let's go four hours, well, foreign change from where we were and give it a go. Yeah. Maybe search for the Lucid Desert Massa Saga. Nice.

Yeah. And Dustin did call me and say, hey, we're going to go do this. Do you want to join us? And I'd already made it a couple hours further. and I wouldn't have been able to make it to that spot before, you know, it was too dark. We had made it right at the end of that period. The end of the window. Yeah.

So, you know, it was nice of you to check in and see, because I probably, if I was closer, I probably would have would have done it. But, yeah, it's just the way it worked out. Yeah. Yeah, it would have been worth it. We did get one, so we're looking at to see one. That's awesome. Yeah, and lots of gophers snakes in the kind of lower elevation as you're going up to it.

And then, hey, you guys have turned up the one, and it was nice enough to sit. And so we got to see it as well. The big picture takeaway was that I wound up saying it actually wasn't a lifer in the ones I'd seen in Colorado to me or just deserts as well. So my lifer was actually last year. So one off the forum, Dustin doesn't have to come to Colorado and look for him here if he wants to, but he doesn't have to relative to the forum task. So I hope that was good news. Yeah, again, it's been a few years since I'd seen one, so it was good to get, you know, some better photos and just really appreciate those animals.

Yeah. And that was like for you, Nick, right? That was definitely my first. It was really cool. I was my first destroyer us, too, so it was just, it was cool to compare between them and them and Pratolus, for sure. Nice. Yeah, I was pretty happy you guys found one. That was cool.

I would have been a lot of work out. Yeah. Right. I was pretty stressed on the drive there. Is it going to be worth it? That would have been grim. Not Grand Canyon level, but, you know, half the way to that, maybe a third of the way to that. Yeah.

But I think that might be something I try down, you know, in the future on my way down, if I drive down to that area again just hit it on the way in and you know hopefully knock one out or on the way back. Yeah, the portal as well, right? Yeah, I think much less reliably. Harder to find.

We've looked for them unsuccessfully down there. Yeah, infrequently found in that area for sure. Yeah. Dustin, you haven't seen one down there, right? No, I haven't. Yeah. I've definitely spent some time cruising where

they're most notably found. Yeah. What time do you guys get a lot of traffic? Yeah. When you're looking by Pornel. Right. What times do you guys get back to the Airbnb? B&B.

Okay. Yeah, round one. Not too terrible, but, yeah. But after having spent a week in the Pals, it was also not the most pleasant. Right. Right. Speaking as the person not driving. Yeah.

So, yeah. I then had to run a brief task and wound up herping a little bit more. I saw another a scoot and a baby gopher that I had straddled and then had diverted some, weirdly enough, someone was on that road at what was then 145, 2 o'clock in the morning. But they straddled it too and it was another baby gopher. So that was good. It came back and meanwhile I hadn't needed to leave the place to do herpen because it Dustin and Phil had seen a scoot that went and posted up in ambush for supper.

Yeah, right in the driveway. That's a, it's a great spot for an Airbnb if you like snakes. If you don't, it's probably not a job. Right. There was rhinosoma poop on the porch and things like that, too. So good stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

I think we saw the same morning. Yeah. Yeah. I was in the same Cornutum two days in a row, too. Oh, nice. You guys, I guess, had seen it the day before, so it was actively shedding, which was really cool. See, beautiful, you know, the underlying colors and things. And then it made me bleed my own blood.

It had sort of jammed one of its horns into my finger in a defensive response when I had grabbed. Really? It was up that morning. It was your heading out. And then I was like, why is there blood on one of its projections? And the answer was, oh, it was from my finger that he had dug into it. So, you know, that was pretty cool. Oh, that's cool.

Huh. Yeah, there was a little, little ant mound right there, too. It was, so it was very clearly, it was hanging out there for a reason. Yeah. Nice. And then you guys just drove back and dropped everybody off at the airport and headed out, huh? Yeah, split ways that morning. Brandon took me home.

You guys hauled out of the airport. Nice. Good stuff. Well, another good trip in the, books and some really cool stuff seen. So that was awesome. You know, there's still a mission to be had, but it was definitely in the right trajectory.

You know, we're heading in the right areas. Yeah. A lot less grim than last year when we had come off doing the same thing, you know. Right. So same number of days out there. Definitely much more success. Yeah. And feeling better about it, you know.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, always good to get lifers on a trip. I mean, you know, that was. Very cool. I was glad I came down because I was on the fence whether or not I could make it happen. I came late, but yeah, I think I got to see all the best finds. So that was good. Yeah, I guess I did get one lifer just through a crack, but that desert stripe or that desert whip snake. Oh, yeah.

That's right. Over in the Mexico, yeah. Yeah, further in New Mexico. That's cool. Yeah, well, yeah, looking forward to the next one. I guess... Already thinking about it, man. Right.

I guess one of my final thoughts on this was I'm not sure how... I guess I look at and think there's so many more things to find, you know, and do I want to be herping the same area over and over and over until we find one thing? You know what I mean? Like, that's kind of a maybe more philosophical thought that I've been having lately is like, am I, am I that much herping to a list or do I want to see, you know, other low-hanging fruit that I haven't seen?

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. But, you know, the frequency of seeing cool things is pretty low. Pretty low. And, you know, so that's, you know, that's kind of one of the thoughts I had. I don't know if you guys are. feeling the same way at all, but I would love to see some other stuff that's, you know, in California or Arizona or something like that. And I still need to see a tortoise in, you know, Tucson area or whatever, wherever else. So I did look on the way out towards Phoenix, but yeah, it was kind of had rained quite a bit through the area. And there was like a bunch of stuff, you know, washed over the roads. Like there's a bunch of cacti in the road that had washed in. from a wash and stuff.

But so that's kind of something I've been kicking around in my head. Maybe that's the fight portion of this. I'm, I'm, I'm someone who likes to just hurt ranges, you know, spend an entire season in a range and figure it out. Yeah, I was going to say, I think,

uh, Brandon and Dustin will beat me on it, but I probably would be out there, I don't know, eight, 10, 12 days next year. So. Okay. Well, there's still more to see, you know.

Like, I think for me personally, I'm like, there's still stuff from that range that I haven't seen that, I mean, and being new to all of this, maybe my perspective will change a bit. But until I start getting tired of pyros, I can't see myself not wanting to be in that range. Okay. Cool. Yeah. But you're not wrong, Justin. You are definitely not wrong, gosh. of other things and that it is it is what it is um again as i said more than an hour ago if i think our

party advice would be if uh if you don't need to go if it's not something that you need to make happen then don't if there's any question in your mind whether you need to or should you know whether you should or need to if there's any question you have about that then don't generally right right Yeah, I guess it maybe was more talking to Jordan, and he was kind of thinking along the lines of like, yeah, the white whale or whatever, you know, like, or just, you know, like, I'm okay with having that be a white whale for now or, you know, that kind of idea. But, you know, it just got me thinking a little bit, like, is there other things that I need to be out there? I mean, I still haven't seen a Southern Pacific rattlesnake for crying out loud. Like, you know, I need to see one of those. And, yeah.

So anyway, or maybe do something in the interim to get me excited again. But that said, like, you know, we were just out there and I was like, I kind of want to go back and, you know, join you guys out there again. So I want to go back this weekend. Yeah. I get so fixated on stuff when I typically when I fail at something, it makes me want it that much more. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But, I mean, that said, it was a wonderful trip, and I don't regret any part of it. So, yeah, it was a lot of fun. Always great to herb with you guys, for sure. Always. Yeah. So, all right. Any other exciting things going on in the world of herpetology, herpeticulture? I did pick up a book written by a fellow Utah, the only good snake by David Jensen.

So I'm excited to dive into this a bit and see. what it's all about, but I guess he's done a lot of Rattlesnake relocations and things like that. So kind of a bit of a memoirs type book, so looking forward to reading that. Yeah. Other than that, I think I got another book. No, well, I did pick up a print on my drive towards out of there. I picked up a Gila print from a Tel Hicks print on my way out. So I needed to pick one of those out.

I guess considering that they're going to become scarce, I think, in the coming years with no new ones coming out since Tel Hicks passed away. So excited about having another Tel Hicks numbered print, I guess. You guys all got a couple as well, right? Yeah, you got a couple. out of the collection. Yeah, yeah. So good stuff. And it was cool to see Bob's

kind of set up to honor tell. He's got some of his paint brushes and some of his sketches and things like that and one of the end caps of row of books in his library. So neat to see him on or tell that way.

Yeah, always good to see Bob as well. Yeah. Well, if there's nothing else, I guess we can wrap this up. Thanks for coming on, guys. It was good to have you here. We were worried nobody was going to show up here for a bit. So glad to get two of you guys. And again, always good herping with you.

But with that, we'll thank Eric and Owen and the NPR crew. And we'll catch you next time for Reptaught Fight Club.