With so many Rosy adventures stored in My memory banks, knowing which one to share is a challenge. I good place to start is with finding my first Rosy in the wild. In 1987 I was living in Venice Beach CA. I moved to the Los Angeles area to make a living maintaining fresh photo here and saltwater aquariums as well as Koiponds. Through this business I met my would be roommate Larry Sharon. Larry managed a Tropical Fish store on Pico Blvd called LA Aquarium. Larry was also in to venomous herps. He introduced me in to road cruising for snakes the summer of 1987. The only place he went to was Anza Borrego and out near the town of Mojave. Larry had a friend that said he went to a lot of different spots looking for Rosy Boas. Larry then introduced me to his friend Rainer


(My first wild caught Rosy collected in 1988)
(known today as bluerosy on the Rosy forum). From then on Rainer and I started going to the commonly known spots, but it was in the fall so we didn’t find any Rosys. That next spring, Rainer gave up his “secret spot”, Nichols Road off Interstate 15. One week after he took me to his coveted spot, I went back with my other roommate Dave Navarro and was able to find my first Rosy in the wild. It was March 28th, 1988 at about 5:30 pm. She was lying in the middle of the dirt road just as the sun was going behind the hill. I was so excited that I stopped about 50 feet back, got out of the truck and ran to her. I remember jumping up and down yelling WAHOO!!!!!! with her in my hands in the middle of the road. I have seen countless Rosys in the wild, but none were as exciting as that first find. The next evening Dave and I went back to Nichols Road and found a male Rosy not more than a quarter mile from were we found the female. Today she is doing great. She is the largest Rosy in my collection and blesses me with 8 – 11 baby Rosys every year. She is like the Rosys matriarch to my collection.

Again, with an endless data base of adventures stored in my head, I gotta go with one of that’s closest to my heart. I mentioned in the bio page, the greatest reward of having Rosy Boas, is my wife and children. Although my son Jakeub went on his first Rosy adventure when he was just three weeks old, he didn’t see his first Rosy in the wild until he was one year old. Historically, I meet up with my best friend Ryan Pear on Memorial Day weekend for some quality time together road cruising in some remote spot through Rosy habitat. Since we only get to go once a year with each other, it has become tradition. On the Memorial Day weekend in 2003 we decided to bring our wives and kids to let them share time together too. We met-up in Ridgecrest CA and decided we would go to

(Jakes first wild Rosy in 2003)

Homewood Canyon 10 miles outside of Trona CA. We all piled in the Yukon at the bottom of the canyon and started making a few passes conversing about the usual stuff (bills, work, our children, did I mention bills?). It’s a very relaxing road to look for herps on. Paved up to where the old mine is, and then it turns to dirt and heads up the mountain. We see a couple of banded geckos and a big desert hairy scorpion. (My wife loves the geckos, but hates the scorpions). Anyway after a few passes I noticed a stick way off on the dirt shoulder that wasn’t there on the last pass. So I kinda casually stop, and all the adults in the vehicle say, what, what is it, what did you see? So I back up, stick the flashlight out the window and say, just a Rosy over on the shoulder. So everybody jumps out of the vehicle while I go get it to set on the road for everybody to see. Then I took Jake out on to the road to see it and take a photo or two. Don’t worry there weren’t any other vehicles on the road. Jake just stood there and watched it crawl. It was a very special moment for me. It doesn’t get any better then that, well maybe when Jake actually sees one on the road or in the field before his old man does.