First Alterna Story...
It was 1993, A time when MTV still played videos, The music was grunge and The Dallas Cowboys were champions. If you were in the Del Rio area you probably noticed a small white Isuzu
with a large Fin on the back with performance tires and rims. That was Johnny and I. Two crazy first year guys trying to find an Alterna. Since the only form of communication back then was usenet (no internet) and word of mouth, we had to depend on books and friends. We decided to hunt JUNO road since the alterna from Juno looked the best to us. Juno was like something from a movie. Cars every mile or so with Lights
as bright as UFOs. And here I thought we would be in the middle of nowhere with nobody bothering us. Our first night out we found an adult lepidus on a cut we dubbed "Lepidus Cut" about 6 miles south of bakers crossing. Johnny almost picked it up since he thought it was an alterna at first and we got in a small scurmish until he noticed the rattles.
(I SAVED YOUR BUTT!) We slepts daily at the little area next to bakers and got water from Devils River. We were sooo paranoid of the Game Wardens and such, hearing all the rumors.
On June 9th the moon was almost full but we were still out in force. We had spotlights hanging out of the side of the truck hitting the grass on the sides of the road as we drove along.
We were nuts back then. Coming from the south up to the first S-curve before bakers we both saw a large snake cruising in the dirt on the right (east) side of the road. We both yelled
ALTERNA and before I could even stop the truck Johnny had jumped out of the window (it was already open) and had the snake in his hand. It was a large 40in male snake with a fuzzy
in his mouth. He promptly let go of the fuzzy and bit the heck out of Johnny. It was awesome! It had orange infused with the grey to give it a blue look. It had two parallel lines for a
nuchal bloch. Phenominal. Not only had we scored on our first trip, but we got a 10. We didn't tell anybody about it while we were out. Lots of other hunters in the area and we
protected it with out lives. The funniest part of this trip was actually trip down to Del Rio. Johnny was a very tall skinny kid, 18, 6'5''. I would have described him as lanky. He had a habit of sticking his head out the window all the time. We were driving down i-20 west of Fort Worth
when I he had his head out the window. I hard this loud popping noise, then a HIGH PITCHED SCREEM!
"STEEEEEEEVE, I GOT STUNG BY A BEE". He turned his head and stuck to it was a bumble bee. It stung him as it hit his head. I was laughing so hard I almost peed myself. The whole trip he had this huge welp on his forhead. It was so funny walking into convenience stores and people
staring at the welp. Too Funny.
Does anyone know if they ever re-opened that store on Juno about 20 miles north of bakers?
Best Wishes,
Steven
