Weekly Update Archive

Week Ending 09/20/04

Weekly updates for Sept. 13-20 2004

This was my last West Texas trip for the year 2004. This particular trip had been postponed twice because I had to pour so much money into my beloved Chevy Blazer to keep her on the road that I just could not afford to head out West as many times as I would have liked. Also the fact that we had problems with the breaker box and air conditioning unit at the house really put a hurt on us. This last trip was a classic Wayne trip. So sit back, because here we go!

Meridith accompanied me again on this last trip out West. Since our ETHS reptile breeders EXPO was Sept 10, 11 and 12th, we ended up leaving on Monday the 13th. We cruised to Sanderson the first night hunting all the way from Comstock to the East cuts of Sanderson. We saw several atrox, one D.O.R. Checkered Garter and not really much else. Rain followed us all the way past the West side of San Antonio. We arrived around 2:30a.m. We stayed at the Outback Oasis Motel, where ALL herpers should stay when out in the area.

Tuesday, the 14th, we got out of Sanderson after visiting with Roy and Ruth and we headed for Ft. Davis. We made base camp at the Motor Lodge just as you head out of Ft. Davis, going north on 17. I had to replace my headlight as an 18-wheeler threw rocks and debris when passing me on highway 90 earlier in the day. He also helped me out a little more by cracking my windshield in two more places. When in the hell are they going to be finished with the roadwork heading west out of Sanderson??? We took a short nap, then grabbed a burger at Pop's which moved to highway 17 South. They just do not taste the same now that they moved. It was a depressing meal to tell you the truth. Should have left it as the old burger joint in town, guys! We headed for the Boy Scout Road that runs off 17 North. We ran into Ric Blair from Utah. This was his last night of herping. He had been out for 5 days and had not yet caught any alterna. We talked for about 4 minutes or so and then went on our separate ways. When we made the first turn around at the ranch, I found a large gorgeous male pictigaster on the way back. I was pretty happy because they are THE most desired of all the copperheads. I saw nothing else but I did not make multiple passes. I certainly should have, though.

I am going to jump a little in time and say that when we hunted South of Alpine Wednesday night, I saw Doug Beckwith herping on the "big hill" and he told us that Ric Blair was a happy man. I asked him, "What do you mean?" He said that he had caught an alterna on Boy Scout Road and another at Limpia Canyon, but also had missed one! I didn't have to do much math to figure out that he had to have caught that alterna right after we saw him because he never made any more passes. I verified this with Norman Nunley and photographed the snakes. As I said, and I will say it one more time, Ric…you dog! You know if I had not stopped and spoken to you, you most likely would not have caught that Alterna! You can thank me!!! I could also say that I got that pictigaster because I had talked with him, as well. I would have much rather caught the alterna. Oh well! As they say, maybe next time. We saw several molossus. Up near the observatory, we saw a little Emory Rat Snake. The temperature had to be well into the sixties. This would be the last snakes we saw on this night.

The 15th, we hit the Antelope Lodge in Alpine. We collected out on FM 2810 South towards Pinto Canyon. I saw a gorgeous male Western Hognose that was a fresh D.O.R. Most likely the Border Patrol hit him. This would have been a nice find. I was not happy about this one. We ended up seeing 4 species of snakes in one pass on this road, which is most excellent for herping. We found a checkered garter, several baby bull snakes, and a Kansas Glossy Snake. We headed back towards Alpine but stopped outside of Marfa to check out the infamous Marfa lights. Just 4 minutes of our arrival, they appeared and we checked them out for about 15 minutes or so. Interesting, but not as much as herping. We took off and checked out 118 South. We saw no alterna whatsoever and nothing else for that matter. According to Doug Beckwith, 10 alterna had been picked up in the last 10 nights. Of course I would not be one of those lucky ones. This is typical though.

The 16th, I decided to head down to the River Road by means of Pinto Canyon. This is one awesome place, I tell ya. I was going to collect here this night, but I decided to try and get that River Road alterna I have been seeking for decades now. I would not find it. We only collected here one night. All we saw were several D.O.R's, several molossus and one subocularis. We made 40 or so passes back and forth through Panther Canyon with no luck. Again, very typical. We stayed at the Three Palms Motel in Presidio for easy access to the River Road. F or the fun of it, we checked out the Hot Springs in Ruidosa Texas. My GOD! I think I have seen this place on Petticoat Junction. It was a scary place. I won't go into detail but let's just say you will never find me hanging out there.

Friday, the 17th we checked in to Easter Egg in Terlingua. We decided to cruise through the park and do a head count of animals that we would see. We saw 5 owls, 5 foxes, several molossus, some scutulatus, atrox, pituiophis, a few Emory's, and one Border Patrol! OOOPS, I was supposed to stick with the animals! Sorry. We went up 118 North and saw absolutely no snakes. We had started out the evening with a few brews at LaKiva. I really wish their beer would get a little colder rather than the Terlingua version of "cold". Gotta wonder about that!

The 18th would prove to be a little brighter as far as collecting goes. We checked into the Sunset Siesta in Alpine and my GOD, what a mistake. We should have checked out immediately. The carpet looked like it had never been vacuumed since the place was built and overall it was not a clean room. This place could run neck and neck with the Desert Hills Motel in Del Rio. It was not a pleasant experience. I will never be staying there again. I will have to hand it to Meridith for hanging in there on this one. We headed up to the Boy Scout Road again and ran into Chris Reiman and his wife Liz. We ended up picking up tow lepidus (both males) and saw one nicely patterned atrox and saw a very nice molossus. I would have captured him for Chris, but I didn't find out he was looking for any until I saw him later. He also picked up very nice pictigaster and two baby lepidus. Yes sir! The babies are out in full force. We also caught and released a large female emory's rat. I got really excited when I saw her in the road, as I just knew it was an alterna. I should have guessed though when we saw it out in the road surrounded by the open field. It got my heart pumping though. We made multiple passes for hours on this road and this would be all we would find. Again, no alterna.

Sunday, the 19th was going to be the day we left to go back to Houston. I was walking back to the office to give them their key back and Meridith turned the key and tried to start my truck and it just kept cranking over and over but never firing. I said to myself "Oh Sh**! Not again. I ended up calling AAA and found that there was a mechanic not 300 feet from where we were staying. I decided to let him do the work since he was right there. Of course no one in the town is open on Sunday for care repair so we would end up staying another night. It ended up my fuel pump had gone out and was not pumping fuel to the injectors. I just got the fuel pump replaced not a month and a half ago, and already it was shot. Why? I could not tell you because when it was replaced, the return line to the pump had gotten twisted by yours truly trying to save some money and screwing things up. This had been the reason why I was having so much trouble with the injectors going out and my fuel pumps as well, but this problem had been resolved, or so I thought. My truck performed marvelously to and from Florida and evidently now, it was catching up to me again. We checked into a much nicer motel on the West side of Alpine, the Loma Linda I think it was. We were able to get the rental car place in town to open up for us and rent us a car so we could have some wheels. Yes, I did utilize this time to go out collecting once again. We headed back to the Boy Scout Road and tried our chances one more time. Unfortunately tonight the rains would hit and hit hard they did. We saw Chris and his wife again but we all got rained out so we headed back to Alpine. The rain was intermittent on the way back, so we were able to see some snakes out and about. We saw many Checkered Garters feeding in the road, and I snapped a photo of a 4 foot molossus that had just been hit by a series of three cars. I saw another baby Bull Snake and nothing else. We headed back in early as the night was all but shut down at this point.
Now that I would have to make up this day of work and work the up coming Saturday, we got up and I started making phone calls. The mechanic said it would be about 2:00 before my truck would be ready. This really pissed me off because this should only be a two hour job with the right tools and a lift which they did have. We ran around town to blow off time, and when we got back to the mechanics, the truck was finally "ready" at 2:30. The rental car was $43.00 all together which was great for us. I drove the truck to the gas station and filled the tank up and when it was full, gasoline poured all over the pavement. The dumb ass mechanic ended up letting the O-ring slip down into the tank when he replaced my fuel pump. I was extremely hot and aggravated now. Not only would this delay us for at least two more hours, I was virtually driving a time bomb ready to explode at any moment. All it would take is for the fumes to ignite or someone to throw a cigarette out the window. Thank GOD I didn't have far to go. I expressed my extreme displeasure with the owner and the mechanic. The owner seemed to not give a damn and had the attitude of well, o.k. He'll fix it. No apology, no nothing. He did not even get his lazy ass out there to help or check up on his mechanic. I ended up having to help him fix my own vehicle. I made sure the work had been done right as far as putting the O-ring on. The mechanic has taken it upon himself to cut off the twisted part of the return line that had been bent back into some kind of shape so fuel could pass through thinking that this was the reason behind my pump going out again. So he put a flexible hose with hose clamps on there to "fix" my problem. We took out at 5:00 P.M. and as it was we would be getting in really late. I just had dropped over three hundred dollars for my truck to be "fixed". I was tearing out of town at 75 mile per hour when DPS clocked me. I started to laugh and I said to Meridith, it looks like we will never get out of town. The officer was cool though and just gave me a warning. I just had to tell him about all the misfortunes we were having. I told him we had been snake collecting and he started talking about all the snakes he has been seeing lately as he works the night shift. I told him what the alterna looked like and gave him my card. Maybe he will catch one for me and I can make another visit to Alpine.

Anyway, after that we were off and running. I was tearing down highway 90 trying to make up time that we had lost. Precious time I might add. I was nearing the Pecos River high bridge and an 18 wheeler began flashing his brights at me. I said well, a cop must be up ahead. I started to slow down a bit, then looked in my rear view mirror and saw a trail of smoke coming out form behind my truck. I looked at Meridith and said, "we are not going to make it back tonight." Up until this point, Meridith had been fine with everything. However, she was supposed to leave for Branson, Missouri on Wednesday morning and she needed time to get ready for that trip. She already lost one day due to the fuel pump getting replaced. She started of thinking of ways to get back to Houston when my truck stopped cold. I accessed the problem and saw I was leaking transmission fluid at a pretty fast rate but I could not see where it was coming from. I checked the fluid and it seemed to be a little low but there was still some in there. I just happened to have a half quart left in a bottle in the back of the truck and proceeded to put it in. My truck fired back up and off we went to hobble into Comstock. I was able to get a local there to open his garage up so I could purchase some transmission fluid. He was able to find 2 old cans that he sold me for $5.00. I was very thankful for this. I figured if we could just make it back to Del Rio, at least we could get it looked at and fixed in the morning. Hey, these cans of fluid were so old that they were the round tin cans that required a spout or a can opener! These cans had to be 15 years old or more. Hell, I might even keep one for posterity! I thought I could just keep putting fluid in until I reached Del Rio. I was profusely apologizing to Meridith and she handled the situation well. I felt really bad that it appeared we would not make it. I also could not afford to miss another day at work.

We made it into Del Rio, and I had not seen any more smoke or fluid exiting my truck but I did go into Auto Zone and purchased a case of fluid and a bottle of stop leak, although I did not know why or where the fluid was "leaking". I told Meridith that we were going to head towards Houston and we would be on a wing and a prayer as they say. I babied it back home and we finally arrived shortly after 2:00 A.M. Tuesday morning. I never leaked any more fluid and I did not use any more. I cannot tell you how we made it but I can tell you why. Once again, my guardian angel was with me. After I tell you what happened a couple of days later, you the reader WILL believe!!!

Now, we go into an extended version of the weekly updates. I had driven the truck to work and had left it there until I tried to drive it back home on Thursday. It cranked right up and I was sitting at Beltway 8 and South Gessner in Stafford. Two guys pulled up to me and said, "You're leaking gas everywhere!" I said, "Oh my GOD, PLEASE, not again!!!!" I immediately pulled into a Mobil station and looked up under the truck. Gas was just pouring out all over the pavement. I noticed it was coming out from one of the lines feeding into my sending unit and fuel pump. I shut the truck down and called AAA again, which by the way was an excellent investment considering my truck now has over 348,000 original miles on it, don't you think? I had it towed to Reads Automotive here in town and that hose that the mechanic in Alpine had put on had blown off as a result of the pressure that goes through the lines when operating. Jim Read, the mechanic, said not only was I lucky to have made it back, but back alive considering if it had have blown off during the trip back, I would be a rolling bomb. The truck, of course, could have caught on fire and\or blown up with us inside. This clown in Alpine should have never have cut the metal on the return line to the sending unit because now I had to purchase another sending unit which was $367.00 from the dealership, and also something had happened during the ride home in the sense that the connector to the "newest" fuel pump had melted inside the tank therefore making it mandatory I buy yet another fuel pump. I am not only livid about this whole situation but I will be talking to this clown in Alpine again REAL soon. They even forgot to give me my old pump back so I could get a refund on it. They are supposed to send it to me but the way this outfit operates, I would not hold my breath. I am out some serious money due to many things but most of my troubles here are due to pure negligence on the part of Highland Automotive in Alpine Texas. I would not wish them on anyone! Not even my worst enemy.
My fuel gage works again and the Blazer is back on the road. Why the trouble with the transmission? I do not yet know but that is next on the list. The "funny" part about this is you would think I would now get rid of the Blazer, but in fact Kim and I have purchased a "new" van from Courtesy Chevrolet. It is actually a 2000 Mark 3 conversion van. It was about $12,500 with TT&L and drives great. Now we can enjoy those long trips to Florida and have plenty of room. Here is the funny part. We will be selling Kim's 2 door Blazer that has only 167,000 miles on it as opposed to mine. The main reason being our family has outgrown that vehicle and is too difficult to get the kids in and out
What's left for this year??? I will go to Matagorda Island herping within the next few weeks and also East Texas. After that, all I can say until next year is…Happy Herping!

ETHS Expo and West Texas

Caleb at the ETHS Expo