I had an amazing Memorial Day weekend! Tons of fun all weekend long... I'll spare you the details though, and just tell you about my time with the snakes.
Saturday I went to the Earth Day Festival here in Houston, put on by one of the big radio stations.
-- 7 bands playing intermittently all day long...
I just went there for the music, not expecting much else. Well... since it was Earth Day, they had a lot of booths talking about many things like water conservation, recycling, air pollution, etc...
One of the most popular booths was put up by an animal shelter/refuge, and their display was breathtaking. In the back they had a leopard, which had been rescued and in their care for nearly a year. It was caged, of course, but even from 15 feet away it was a georgeous and amazing animal!
Upfront, they had 4 stacks of vision cages all containing various types of rescued snakes. They had several large common colombian RTB's, an albino burmese python, a regular burmese, a full grown ball python and even a "baby" green anaconda! Also, down at one end they had a rack of aquariums showing "the poisonous snakes of Texas" quite a display... coral snake, cottonmouth, copperhead and a very PO'ed diamond back rattlesnake. It was a very warm day so all the snakes were extremly active. They also had a small turtle display, a talking parrot in a cage, a large Tegu, quite a few spiders, and a wall of pictures showing various animals that had been in their care over the years.
The guys running the booth had no problem taking out the pythons and boas for all the crowd to see and photograph. Most spectators were too afraid to get very close to the big snakes, but I walked right up and began petting the albino python. The guy holding the python turns to me and says "either you are very brave or you've owned snakes before." Of course, I told him I was the proud over of a baby RTB, and the conversation ensued from there. I guess they liked me because pretty soon I had a 7 ft albino burmese python on my back, and later I got to hold 2 full grown RTB's. This was my first time to ever touch or hold large snakes, and it was an unbelieveable experience. My girlfriend teased me saying that she had NEVER seen me smile so big.
I am really enjoying watching my little girl grow, but now I can't wait for her to reach that size. The looks and stares you get when you're walking around with a 7ft snake on your back is unbelieveable and hilarious all at the same time! Definately the highlight of my weekend, which was hard to do because my whole weekend was fabulous. I'm still kicking myself for not bringing my camera...
I've got so much more I can share about this experience, so feel free to ask if you're curious.
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David - Houston, TX
Young Red Tail Boa
Purchased 11/16/03
www.geocities.com/davidag02
