We got up at 8:15 from our last night sleeping in the house and took showers. Then we started cleaning the house while Jason made biscuits and gravy for breakfast.
Hollis still asleep on the couch
Rhett and Travis's beds from last night (Rhett still in his)
Hot biscuits
Breakfast: biscuits and gravy
Sarah and Eva meet us for a farewell lunch at 11 at a delicious local place called Joe’s Farm Grill.
Walking into Joe's Farm Grill
Joe's baseball glove outside three restaurant
Everyone enjoying lunch
My fontina burger
After lunch, we headed back to the house to finish cleaning. Hopefully we left it cleaner than when we arrived, we can’t thank Sarah, Chris, Eva, and their family enough for their help and hospitality.
The view from the kitchen after cleaning the house
Packed and ready, we drove into the Pinaleno mountains in search of twin-spotted rattlesnakes (Crotalus pricei). Ron invited us to the Tri-City Fire Station in Claypool, AZ where he works to share dinner (that he and his colleagues cooked) with the fire station. When we got there he also surprised us with a black-tailed rattlesnake that he had come across (Crotalus molossus).
Outside the fire department
Pork chops cooking in crockpots
Dinner at the fire station: pork chops, potatoes, and zucchini
Eating dinner with the fire department. Thanks everyone, it was great meeting all of you
We really enjoyed the delicious dinner and great company, thanks Ron and the ready of the fire department. After saying our second farewells of the day (this is likely the last time we’ll see Ron on this trip – hopefully we’ll see him soon in Florida), we headed out for a relatively slow night of road cruising. To stave off boredom, we tried to see through our skin with our flashlights (which are quite bright, it worked better than I expected).
Hollis's leg with a flashlight on it - you can see her veins if you look closely
Rhett with his flashlight in his mouth
The first snake that we found was a DOR gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer) which was being eaten by bees, not something we see often.
A DOR gopher snake being eaten by bees
A close-up of the bees, chowing down
After that interesting find, we spotted a longnosed snake (Rhinochelis lecontei) and a DOR regal horned lizard (Phrynosoma solare), our first horned lizard this trip.
Longnosed snake
DOR regal horned lizard
We had an early morning of hiking planned and still a long way to go to get to our camp site, so we stopped focusing on road cruising at 11:30 and headed towards our campsite. On our way, we were excited to find a large black-tailed rattlesnake (Crotalus molossus).
Black-tailed rattlesnake
We finally pulled into camp in the Coronado National Forest at 1AM where another camper came over and shared some choice words with us about arriving at a campsite at 1AM before driving away.
