There is a personality that grows at a work place among the machinery, the light streaming in through windows, the dust accumulated and each piece of machinery as though they are each a piece of the whole of the body. Your description tells of skills and knowledge seldom continued in this modern world. That personality is a friend that welcomed those that spent so much of their time there. So glad for you to have the opportunity to visit a place of such personal memory and connect with the spirit of those that dwell there. We all leave a piece of ourselves in the places we occupy and listening we can detect the ones that went before us. I hope I have the privileged to see this part of you and your family's history. Thank you for the mental images.

Living Stones Nursery is my favorite Tucson nursery. Maybe not as expansive as some of the other nurseries, but a really nice selection. If you are into Mesembs, then this place is an absolute must! Personally, it was the Welwistchia seedling that got me in the door... The Desert Museum West of Tucson is really nice. Good collection of plants and animals native to the Sonoran desert. If you have time, they have a very large swath of desert with nicely maintained trails to explore. Just getting to the Desert Museum is a beautiful drive, as you go through the outskirts of Saguaro National Park and across a really dramatic mountain pass.

8/8--Now the monsoon rains are really falling. We got rained out of a hike to look for montane rattlesnakes in the mountains and the 4 wheel drive road we were on started to have water running over it. All was not lost though. On the flats we saw a Sonoran Whipsnake (lifelister). That evening the rains continued but we did see a Desert Box Turtle drinking water from the road and an adult Mojave Rattlesnake. Also saw a DOR Checkered Garter Snake. 8/9--Back in the Tucson area, Rachel and I got to see a nice 4 foot Sonoran Gopher Snake. The snake hissed at me when I approached. Nearby we also hiked and saw a dead Western Diamondback near the trail. It wasn't clear what had killed it. Downtown Tucson received 3.37 inches of rain that day and we got rained out of our nighttime road cruise as virtually every road we attempted was closed because of flooding. We turned around at a raging river across theroad on one road. 8/10--Sigh..Time to leave. Too beautiful of country and too much great herps and other animals to see and I wish I could have stayed for a month... My trip total for live snakes: 6 Mojave Rattlesnakes (lifer) 3 Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes 2 Northern Blacktail Rattlesnakes 1 Sonoran Mountain Kingsnake 1 Sonoran Whipsnake (lifer) 1 Sonoran Gopher Snake (lifer) My DOR total: 4 Mojave Rattlesnakes 2 Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes 1 Checkered Garter Snake Our family live snake total: 11 Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes 10 Mojave Rattlesnakes 2 Blacktail Rattlesnakes 1 Arizona Black Rattlesnake 1 Sonoran Mountain Kingsnake 1 Green Rat Snake 1 Sonoran Whipsnake 1 Checkered Garter Snake 1 Sonoran Gopher Snake 1 Great Basin Gopher Snake (my parents saw this en route to AZ) add a Reticulated Gila Monster to that group of snakes and we fared very well as a group even if we did strike out on the three montane rattlesnake species (Ridgenose, Rock and Twin-Spotted Rattlesnakes eluded our entire party).

On August 6th my wife, my parents and I took a morning hike to look for Banded Rock Rattlesnakes. 3 minutes into the trail I spotted this nice Blacktail Rattlesnake resting under a rock. Also on the hike: THIS ROCK IS ALL MINE!! What would you rate this Yarrow's Spiny Lizard on a scale of 1 to 10? If you rated it a 6 your tastes might be in line with the graduate students studying Yarrow's in the area ;-). We found this Yarrow's along a hike and assume it is being studied by herpetologists at the SW Research Station. My brother had never seen a Blacktail Rattlesnake in the wild so we returned to the same hike in the afternoon. The snake was near the same rock and further out in the open. On the same hike we found this cool Mountain Short-Horned Lizard That night the snakes (Diamondbacks and Mojaves) were on the move. In fact the rest of the trip was characterized by rain in the afternoon and evening and Diamondbacks and Mojaves on the move. Here's a picture taken on August 7th as we moved out of a midday thunderstorm in 69 degree weather. Seventeen minutes earlier we were driving in 99 degree weather. 30 degree change in temp in just over 15 minutes. And that night we saw two baby mojaves back to back at 8:30 and 8:33 A baby mojave: Trip Report Part 3 coming soon.