I'm back!

[bladespark]

I forgot to take photos of the reptile show, or of the hotel, the camera got left behind for the one, and we just never got around to it for the other. But the trip was a lot of fun! I did the following:

Looked at a ton of critters. I saw some etremely pretty snakes, including a whole litter's worth of tiger reticulated pythons. Stunning, but at a max size of well over twenty feet, too big for me! The babies were twice the size that Anthony is now.

Held a stunning young adult rainbow boa that I wanted to steal! It was a beautiful dark red Brazilian, somewhere around 4-5 feet long. Also held a really amazing ball python morph, but I've forgotten what it was called. Might have been a bumblebee? It was sort of butter colored, and the black areas were very small. Extremely attractive snake! But neither of those were for sale.

Failed to find a suitable rainbow. There were, other than the large display-only snake I held, just four rainbows there, all Brazilians. Three of the four were just plain. Brown tones with maybe a little orange in them, they nearly could have been Columbians. Not impressive at all. The fourth was... okay. A little red in it, but still very, very dull. If they'd been cheap, I might have gotten and liked any one of them, but they were priced from $140 to $160, which is significantly more than I'd been looking to pay, so no rainbow boa for me. I may end up ordering one on line, or I may see about getting one locally.

I ate the best steak ever! It's funny, really, how you can't remember the details of flavors sometimes. I remembered that I had thought it was the best steak ever, but I couldn't remember exactly how it tasted. It had been something like three years since I'd been there last, after all. But man... so wonderful. Soooooooooooooooo worth the price tag. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. (If you ever want to blow some money on really amazing food, see if there's a Ruth's Chris near you. They are a chain, but a very small and upscale chain.)

I spent way too much on books at Powells. I didn't even get that many, just four. But one was a Watership down picture book that was made from stills from the movie, which I couldn't resist, and another was a brand new Mercedes Lackey book from her fairy tales/elemental master series, and it was the Puss in Boots story, and I really didn't want to wait for that to hit paperback. So I bought two big hardcovers, which really eats into one's money fast.

I also got a new set of clothes, though I can't say I "bought" it, because JJ's mother basically gave it to me, she wanted me to pick out something nice and put it on her card, which JJ is authorized to use. So we did. It took for-freaking-ever to find something I'd be caught dead in. Modern fashion for women just now is alternately 80's-tastic, loud, and trampy. Ugh. But I did eventually find a very nice outfit. JJ had a worse time, he was looking for some pants, and apparently cargo pants have gone out of fasion just now, because we had a time and a half finding any.

Then I made the mistake of going into this cooking store, and they had Scharfenbergers! Nearly the whole line of baking stuff! So I bought a block of the pure unsweetened chocolate, and a bag of cocoa nibs. I've always wondered what those tasted like, now I get to find out! I also found a See's and bought some apricot delights, which I love and haven't had in way too long.




Yes, I bought a snake. It's a corn snake. He's probably nearly as long as Anthony, but not even half as wide. I never really had much interest in owning a cornsnake before, but... he was so pretty, and I was so dissapointed in the rainbows I'd seen. He's far brighter than any of them, even if he's not irredescent. He's also of indeterminate gender, and is about a year old, being something of a "runt" who didn't grow his first year because of being a picky eater, but who the owner finally got on f/t mouse pinkies, and who's been doing much better since. Or so I'm told. He is quite mellow, doesn't seem to be bothered by anything, and is much more active and exploratory than Anthony. He's already gotten down my shirt twice and is currently exploring my hair. Very friendly and personable, and was only $25. He's some kind of morph apparently an unusually bright and striking "normal" not a morph. His color is neat though. It's brightest on his head, as you can see in the pictures, and fades to a darker, more subdued color along his body. (JJ helped pick him out, and I'm pretty sure chose him over the others because the darker spots on his back are Penterian Red.) He's living in Anthony's food dish, which I cleaned out for him, until I can get him a proper tank.





Now I just need a good name for him!