Katie's first camping trip

[desertanimal]

A photo diary.

Starts off well with Katie blowing up her air mattress . . .

No idea what kind of caterpillar this is.

Katie and Zeke

Katie's first bison burger, compliments of chef Stephanie.

Does she like it?

Hell yeah, she likes it! (Who wouldn't?)

First find of the night, as soon as we drove out of our campsite.

Come here, little buddy.

 

[desertanimal]

Katie's first wild rattlesnake find. It was shy. Yes, it's hiding its head in its coils.

Peek-a-boo western diamondback.

Katie's first photo-op with a wild rattlesnake.

I tried and tried to get him to coil up, but all he wanted to do was take off.

Black widow who just caught a grasshopper. Took quite some time to tie him up properly. Longer than we stayed to watch, in fact.

Second rattlesnake of the night.

Cutest thing ever.

Tiiiiiny baby WDB. Paint line on road for reference.

And it was so nice, I realllllly wanted to touch it. But I didn't. Because I didn't want my wife to be mad at me.

 

[desertanimal]

Third snake of the night, another neonate. This one was less nice and actually struck at me, which was also cute.

The neonates are really just gorgeous, don't you think?

Then I ran over a rock, realized it wasn't a rock, and started looking more closely at the rocks. It wasn't wet, so I wasn't expecting the toads to be out. But they were. Couch's spadefoot, male.

The spadefoot's spade feet.

Female Couch's spadefoot. So much prettier.

And a nice, big, fat Sonoran desert toad. I saw this guy, pulled over, we got out, and he'd disappeared. It took a while to find him but we eventually did. You wouldn't think a toad that big could hide, but they sure can at night.

Big.

 

[desertanimal]

After that we went back to the campsite and kicked back with a few beers. Talked girl talk and Katie did experimental astronomical photography until something like 3 am.

Kicking it.

We had a very early morning because it gets hot fast in the desert. Too hot to stay in a tent. A visitor during my tent break-down.

Katie's first tent break-down. Nice scenery, eh?

Then we went for a little walk along a wash that still had water. There were tens of thousands of baby red-spotted toads. It was like when you're at the beach at night and the little crabs are everywhere, only it was daytime and they were toads.

A different toad.

A different toad. Tiiiiiny toad.

Zeke was hot. And whiny about it.

Doggie with landscape.

 

[desertanimal]

Wasps pulling a Jesus. They'd float downstream like this.

Water bugs.

A wasp and its shadow.

My first giant water beetle.

Scary if you're smaller than it.

Clark's spiny lizard.

Greater earless lizard. These things are cool-looking.

 

[desertanimal]

An unflattering picture of me making our only capture.

A gorgeous little black-necked garter snake.

Such a little beauty!

This is me listening politely but not too happily to the know-it-all old man who asked us what we had, listened to me tell him we'd caught a garter snake, came over to look, and proceeded to tell us about it being a ribbon snake, which it is not. Men like to do this to women, go on about things they know little about as if they know lots. Especially older men in the direction of younger women. It is irritating.

This one's not quite done.

Clark's spiny lizard again.

A very cooperative and thirsty swallowtail.

A bit of scenery.

That's all! Thanks for looking!

 

[Lolo]

OMG, those baby toads are the tiniest & cutest things EVER!! Great photos, and what an awesome assortment of wildlife you found... only thing I'm not so fond of are the spiders. *shudder*

Can I come on your next trip? LOL

 

[snakewispera snr]

Excellent, brilliantly entertaining and the pics were great... I really enjoyed the journey with you....
But can I say that not all old men are like that...
It's one of my pet hates, along with old men flirting and old men 'back in the day' LOL

 

[Nanci]

Wow, that's beautiful!! Katie had already described the whole trip to me on the phone- it's so nice to see pics!! I love that Colorado River Toad. i think she might be slightly larger than my Olivia, and way more spotty!!

Katie, does this mean we can go camping here now???

 

[Irish Eyes (Mrs.Z)]

This may be one of the most beautiful photojournals I've ever seen. I was loving every second until I got to the wasp pix. I actually almost threw up--I am terribly, terribly phobic of wasps! Once I got past them, though, I enjoyed the rest of this thread immensely! Thanks so much for sharing these. I've bookmarked this thread so I can come back to it any time I want .

 

[ZoologyGirl]

Wow what great pics. I love the scenery pics. And the first pic is priceless :laugh:

 

[ratsncorns]

That looks like it was so much fun! Great pictures and I love the expression on your face while listening to the old man haha.

I really really need to get out to AZ. One of the few places I have not been.

 

[ArpeggioAngel]

Thanks for posting these Stephanie. I still don't have my hard drive issue sorted out yet so mine are still on my camera.
It was an amazing weekend and I don't think my first camping trip could have gone any better. Stephane was so patient with me being such a newbie!! The wildlife, the scenery, the food and conversation - all of it made for a fantastic experience!!

 

[desertanimal]

Excellent, brilliantly entertaining and the pics were great... I really enjoyed the journey with you....
But can I say that not all old men are like that...
It's one of my pet hates, along with old men flirting and old men 'back in the day' LOL

I know, Mike, not all old men are like that. Thank goodness! But many men are. And I don't really think it's on purpose a lot of the time. I think half the time they don't even know they're doing it.

I'm glad you had a good time, Katie! I did, too. I love camping.

 

[The_Thunderer]

What a great camping trip ya'll had, Steph and Katie!!! LOTS of finds!!!! Quite amazing. Your presentation was great too. Man, I still regret the fact that I didn't get to meet Katie this time. As a matter of fact, I haven't really met you either! LOL.

Thanks for sharing the photos!!!

 

[Susielea]

What a wonderful photo thread, I really enjoyed the commentary as well as the photos, thank you so much for sharing your trip with us!!!