I have some pictorial trip reports elsewhere, but following Keith's format for a sense of the day by day results here is how my first three days went: 7/30-Arrived at Tucson airport in the evening and cruised backroads for sidewinders that night. Came up empty on sidewinders. Saw several Merriam's Kangaroo Rats. Also saw a DOR Mojave Rattlesnake en route to sidewinder country. 7/31-Walked a wash in the morning looking for Gila Monsters with no luck. Spent the afternoon at Sonoran Desert Museum and added Desert Spiny Lizard, Zebra-Tailed Lizard and Sonoran Desert Whiptail to my lifelist there. Took a night hike looking for Gila Monsters and saw about 70 Great Plains Toads and one large Sonoran Desert Toad. 8/1-Hiked in the Huachucas looking for Ridgenosed Rattlesnakes with no luck. Saw several tarantulas on the roads. Then drove to Cave Creek Ranch near Portal where we'd be staying most of the trip. Saw two Desert Box Turtles on the roads near Portal. A Madrean Alligator Lizard (lifer) greeted us at the door of our cabin at Cave Creek Ranch. It was crawling up the crack of the door and ran into the cabin and under the stove when I opened the door.

8/2--During the day found some Slevin's Bunchgrass Lizards, Yarrow's Spiny Lizards and a Desert-Grassland Whiptail. Like Keith I had a good night on the roads. I found a gorgeous and very large green Mojave Rattlesnake (3 feet plus with 10 buttons on the rattle) at 7:45PM. I was thrilled as it was my first live Mojave in the wild. Twenty minutes later I found a 15-16 inch subadult Mojave rattlesnake. Toads were also in force and I saw many great plains toads and a couple of spadefoot toads. 8/3--no interesting herps today. Saw an Arizona Woodpecker and a Sulfur-Bellied Flycatcher for a couple of lifelist birds. 8/4--hiked to the top of a mountain with my wife and dad in the Portal area and nearly slid off a steep point where the trail was partially eroded. My mom had turned back because of the hazardous trail quality in some places. Saw lots of lizards and had fun seeing the species change as we gained in elevation. Start of the trail was dominated by whiptails, then Striped Plateau Lizards and a Clark's Spiny Lizard and finally Mountain (Yarrow's) Spiny Lizards. Saw an enormous 55 inch snake skin at lower elevation on the way back. I imagine it belonged to a Western Diamondback by size alone. If it is a Blacktail Rattlesnake it is a remarkable specimen. My mom saw a Green Rat Snake down at lower elevation. Wish I'd been there for that instead of going on the mountain ledge balancing tour. The night road cruise that night was disappointing and only produced two DOR snakes. A Western Diamondback and a juvenile Mojave.

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).

Sounds like you had a wonderful trip and glad you all enjoyed it. That's a lot to cover in 11 days! Dh and I drove across country right after we got engaged, starting in No. California. We'd both been to the Grand Canyon before, but while living in Hawaii, we met a guy who grew up in AZ. He told us about this canyon adjacent to the Grand Canyon that he and his family used to hike into - the trail ends in an Indian reservation. We decided to do it on our trip across country. I'm not sure what we were thinking...while physically fit, we weren't big hikers and it was a 10 mile hike down, it was 100+ degrees (middle of July). We camped overnight and then hiked back out the next day. I was never so happy to get back to our car with A/C! From there we were headed to Denver, so we drove up through Utah along some deserted 2-lane highways, but the scenery was spectacular. We didn't make it to Bryce or Zion, but we have vowed that once all of our kids were old enough to appreciate, we were going to do a trip like yours. We'll probably just do Sedona, Grand Canyon, and then one place up in Utah. I assume you were driving from place to place? Did you get to stop at any of the pueblos? Those were really pretty cool. I agree with you about Vegas. Once was enough for me. We stopped there too on our trip from San Fran down to AZ via L.A then San Diego (our trip was very convoluted as we were all over the map visiting friends along the way). We just had an overnight in Vegas, but did hit a casino just for fun. Totally not my thing at all. Just too much for me. It was neat to experience once, but I have no desire to head back. Did you see the Hoover Dam too? Probably not as I imagine that wasn't on your way if you were coming from Utah. If you have any specific kid-friendly info of places you stopped, please share! I'm taking note of the Pink Jeep tour! Glad you had a great time but totally understand being a little bit too much togetherness! With four kids, I get that when we are having to stay in hotel rooms for any length of time.