Hal, Thanks for the comments, since we had to get back to Sanderson that night anyway, I couldnt resist shining a light around on the way back to see the prettiest snake of Texas out moving around. Get this, this kingsnake was NOT even discovered until 1901 from TX, then it was first found in the Davis Mountains. Around 1949, 2 Herpetologists (people who study reptiles like snakes) were driving on US 90, about 8.8 miles West of Dryden & found a unusual patterned kingsnake crossing the road there. It was not patterned the same as the original 1901 Davis Gray-banded was & so at first they didnt even know forsure what it was. Turns out it was ALSO a Gray-banded kingsnake, although it had wide orange bands like the snake we found this trip. The wide orange banded gray-bands are called "blairs" phase by us snake people, the variety found in the Davis mountains & Big Bend area tend to have much reduced orange-red bands or no orange at all & are known as "alterna" phase variants of the gray-banded kingsnake. These kingsnakes were actually found to be not really rare at all, but extremely secretive, living deep within limestone fissures & cracks below the ground surface & coming out after dark, in search of food like lizards & mice. Unless a person looks at night for them, you would almost never ever see one in the wild.

Yes Hal, the ground is springing to life here, we have grass, weeds & snakes out now, Yipee! LOL I have even found 3 points already, need to get them posted soon. Later, John

Great pics and update. Hal, what kind of new tool you call that you are using??

Trav !! , , , , , is that really YOU

I figured those four inch hailstones yesterday would have gone right through your roof and pulverised your PC and the occupants.. !

Tool is the " JUNO "....created a couple of months ago specifically to deal with the millions of fire rocks at Juno 1 - 2 & 3