Beth, I made pickles first and then I finished dehydrating my tomatoes from yesterday and then I finished my yellow tomato sauce and THEN I made one batch of Multi-purpose Seasoned Tomato Sauce. By the time I finished it was around 2 p.m. and we hopped in the car and sped down to the Southlake Central Market to check out their produce selection. I was a little disappointed. They didn't have nearly as many heirloom winter squashes, pumpkins and gourds nor did they have as many heirloom tomatoes. However, they did have pickling cucumbers, so I bought another 5 lbs. Since I made bread-and-butter pickles today, I'll make dills tomorrow. Best of all, my own pickling cukes are about to reach pickling size, so I'll be able to make stacker-type pickles about Friday or Saturday. We also picked up a 10-grain store bakery bread that we like and a few other veggies. Then, it was off to Green Sprouts Farmer's Market a couple of miles up the road. It really is just a smaller, more affordable version of Whole Foods or Central Market, but I mean really, really, really smaller and not much selection. They had some great prices on produce, but a lot of their produce was overripe and I didn't purchase anything there. But, I did get visiting those two stores out of my system. The next time I want to go to Central Market, I'll go to Fort Worth because it has a better selection by far. I don't know this for a fact, but it seems bigger than the one in Southlake. It might be that the Fort Worth store has more autumn pumpkins and winter squash outside because they have a big covered patio type thing in front of the store where they often have musicians and cookouts when the weather is good, and I didn't see anything like that at the Southlake store. The only advantage the Southlake store has over Fort Worth is that Tim can stop by it on his way to work at DFW Airport if there's something I "need". I got home in time to spend an hour in the garden while my sweet DH grilled chicken and sausage and made dinner. I had used up all my tomatoes today making the multi-purpose tomato sauce, but I got to pick another 6 tonight, so I'm OK. Moni, I think Tulsa might have a Whole Foods or Wild Oats which are sort of similar to Central Market but more heavily focused on organics and less focused on gourmet-type fare, although there is a lot of gourmet type stuff, especially if you like artisan cheeses and breads. I'll do some research and see what I can find out about Edmond-OKC-Tulsa. Surely something in that area has a 'health food store' with a good selection. I have found they usually have the best produce in terms of variety and selection. Today I was looking at all the fingerling potatoes (six or eight varieties) at Central Market and making a mental note to buy some in December to sprout for spring planting. Two road trips in two days. I've got to stay home and weed and mow for the rest of the week or the yard and garden will be a jungle. Jan, I'll link Pendery's below. The web site is great, but if you're ever in the Fort Worth-Dallas area, you have to visit the store for the sheer pleasure of inhaling all the lovely aromas of the many spices and herbs. Don't miss their chili mixes. They are great and come in many combinations. I love that Pickling Spice and Italian Seasoning Mixes too---they look like real spices and herbs, not just ground-up powders. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Pendery's Spices

8/5--Had my best snake day of the trip. Saw a nice adult Black-Tailed Rattlesnake crossing a road at 1:35PM at 5800 feet elevation. It had ten buttons and was a good 3 feet long. We followed it into the woods and continued snapping pictures of it. Two female rangers happened upon our vehicle blocking the road and saw that we were taking pictures of a snake. They were very friendly and said they had seen another one of similar size and color about ten minutes up the road. At 5:05PM we came across a Sonoran Mountain Kingsnake at 7800 feet elevation. It was a gorgeous snake. I t was unusually fiesty too. It bit me repeatedly in rapid succession and musked me in my brief attempts to keep it in range for pictures. I was amazed at the speed in which it struck and its personality seemed more like that of a arcer or coachwhip. Possibly my favorite snake of the trip. Believe it or not, I've only been bitten by 3 snakes in my life and so any snake that bites me gets special recognition. That night I roadcruised from 7:30-9:30 and found two nice Western Diamondbacks. The first was an impressive 43 inch specimen at 8:20PM. The second was a 31 inch Western Diamondback at 8:50PM. The lengths are approximate. I didn't hold them out to a tape measure. Both snakes were unaggressive and merely went about their foraging as though we weren't even there. 8/6-Spotted a modest sized adult Black-Tailed Rattlesnake under a rock 3 minutes into a hiking trail in the mountains. Also saw several Yarrow's Spiny Lizards. The snake was still basking under the rock when we returned from our hike at 10:45AM. We brought Keith out that afternoon and the snake was still there. He learned that its hard to get a good snake picture with a disposable camera. As he leaned to get up close to the snake eye to eye it zipped under a rock and rattled its tail in retreat. We saw a cool mountain short horned lizard on our hike. It did let me lay down for some eye to eye shots with a point and click digital. The snakes were on the move that night. I spotted a Mojave and a Western Diamondback from the car and missed seeing a Western Diamondback that moved across the road swiftly while I was looking for a road sign. Also saw a DOR Mojave. 8/7--Didn't do much herping in the day because Rachel wanted to see Bisbee. We drove there and at one point watched the temp drop 30 degrees in 15 miles. Decided to road cruise the mountains at evening and early night but the rains had made things very cool and nothing was stirring. Cruised the flats for half an hour as a consolation and saw two juvie Mojaves back to back at 8:30 and 8:33PM.

The rains were strong the last couple days of the trip. Our last day and night in the SE corner of AZ was characterized by heavy rains. We got rained out of a day hike in the mountains and had to settle for a Sonoran Whipsnake sighting on the flats. It was a great looking snake but alas it was too fast for pictures. The evening produced a Desert Box Turtle drinking from the road in a heavy t-storm and this Mojave Rattlesnake: Our last day in Arizona was spent in the Tucson area since we had to fly out the next morning. Rachel and I sat out a massive t-storm eating lunch under a canopy while downtown Tucson got dumped with 3.37 inches of rain in less than 2 hours. Once the rain let up we did a brief afternoon road cruise and hike (hike cut way short by a flooded wash 2/10th of a mile up the trail). That night our attempts at road cruising turned into an attempt to keep our rent a car from becoming a boat and we abandoned the road cruise for a short walk on high ground. Our farewell gift was this goregous 4 foot Sonoran Gopher Snake (a lifer)! We were stopped watching a Harris Antelope Squirrel on the road when this snake appeared onto the road right behind it! As you can see it was on the move and didn't pose for pictures, but I love the transition in color from front to back.. Off road I got some closer pictures as it moved on: Eventually the snake tired of being pursued for photos and it HISSSED very loudly and turned to face me.. I managed to catch a picture of it while its mouth was still open in a defensive hiss. What a great going away present! Here is the habitat it was found in, complete with a freshly flooded wash. It was hard to leave this rain drenched desert with the monsoon rains starting to hit bigtime and getting the snakes moving. I have no doubt we'll be back..

Fran, I was disappointed we didn't stop at Deception Island. We were told the reason people could safely take a dip in the Antarctic Ocean there is because of a volcano vent in the warm alcove that spews hot water. I would have been one who tried it. But alas I walked away from my cruise with a cool (freezing cold actually LOL) photo of me in a jacuzzi on the top deck of our ship with Antarctica in the background. Did you make it to or through the LeMaire Channel? What a sight that was! I loved our Zodiac days. Did your ship take extreme steps to reduce the amount of bacteria that transfers from the penguin colony? Before getting back on the Zodiac, we had to stand in the antarctic water holding the back of a chair so that staff could scrub the guano off the bottom of our boots with large stiff bristled brushes. Once back at the ship, we sat in chairs on flooring covered in plastic while more staff sprayed disinfectant on our boots. They then placed our boots into white plastic bags that we had to place in our shower for further sanitization. Makes you wonder what penguin guano is made of. LOL Jodi-