NorCal, CentralCali, And Socal

I've been MIA for a few days because I've been traveling the state. I got a few things to report and not time so I'll be bumping up this thread later on tonight with details and pictures hopefully.

Sweet -- let's hear what you snagged!

Eddy's Story.
WARNING THE FOLLOWING STORY INVOLVES ABYSS KILLING TWO SCORPION!!!
Tools:
UV Flashlight 41 LED
Key Chain UV (EBAY LINK)
Indiana Jones Kids meal UV pen (thanks Ras)
Paper Towels
Mini Shovel
Deli cups (small and large)
Camera(Johnny's not mine)
Sanwich bags for substare collecting

Area:
The blue lines are the way we traveled the circles are the spots we hit. The Red circle is the spot I got my head flattened last year.


All the nights we were there we returned to Mariposa County and I had no luck with scorpions untill night time so I found all the scorps in the same basic spot. During the day I managed to get a few centipedes, potato bugs, mili's, some awesome spiders and I really wasn't interested in anything else. I saw a few hawks and voulchers so that was pretty cool too. REMEMBER GUYS I'M FROM THE CITY. Even horses spark my interest. There was a lof of wildlife too many to remember but seeing a hawk swoop down and kill a snakw was awesome. The air was a little to fresh for my taste .
Our first night blacklighting we hit a cliff on the side of a REALLY dark road. It was raining all day and the night was no exception so I (Being ghetto like I am) made a pancho out of a trash bag and wore a BAGana on my head. Thats right I was covered in trash bags. I started blacklighting around the bottom of the cliff and the other side of the road. This cliff was rockslide area by the way and all the rocks would easily break. After an hour of BL and no scorps I was getting really frustrated and I put my pack away and just started carrying everything in my pockets and pulled out all my blacklights for a more intense lighting. I was thinking that maybe the rain was keeping the scorps in their burrows or hides so I started flipping rocks and there was a lot of rocks to flip and still NOTHING. A cricket on the face of the cilff got my attention and i shined my blacklight to spot it. And sure enough my first glow. I have never hunted scorps in that much darkness and with that much blacklight so it was the only thing that stood out. I tested the rocks near the scorp and sure enough they are as fragile as I tought. I try to dig it out and it manages to crawl in between so many rocks. This is my first experiance with scorpion on a vertical surface livin in rock burrows. Unfortunatly since it is a rockslide area I could only do so much digging withou causing everything to collapse. I was a bit disapointed but now I knew where to look for them. Less than five minutes later I spot two. I try digging out the second one and it slipped me again. The third one I already got a feel for how the scorps move and how fast they are that I managed to dig behind the burrow and stop them from running in between the rocks. So finally the third scorpion i see I catch. It pretty much went on like that for another few hours but I was getting scorps like crazy once I realized how to get them. In the whole time I was there I probably encountered about 75 scorpions but I only went after the ones that I could a lot of them were out of reach or too deep in their rocky vertical burrows. In one situation I saw a scorp about a foot above my arms reach so I climbed a bit on WET (still raining), FRAGILE, SLIPPERY rocks to dig it out. I managed to scoop it out of it's burrow but when i tried to catch it I slipped and in an effor to stay on the cliff I stabbed my shovel into the rocks. I looked around for the scorpion and I couldnt see it. It wasn't untill I climbed down that I saw I had stabbed it with my shovel. The next night was more promising, It was clear and i was actually able to see the stars (IM FROM THE CITY ) my 41led was starting to fade and I was relying more on the tiny UV lights since I didn't bring any batteries. I still kept everthing in my pockets because my pack was getting annoying so when I would spot a scorp I would hold the UV lights in my mouth. BAD IDEA!!!!. I ate at least 5 moths and I couldn't get them away from my face. This night I again had another incident where I killed a scorpion. This time I felt more confident in my scorp catching abilities I was getting them at every stop along side the road with ease except for the ones that were out of reach (WHICH WAS MOST OF THEM). Anyways one of these scorps in particular went into a little dip in a rock. Not a burrow or a crack but still deep enough to avoid my hands or shovel. So i started diggin around it like i would normally and i guess my digging caused the whole side of the cliff to collapse in a mini rock slide. It ended up squishing the scorp. I still havent id'd the scorp but I will have pictures up soon.

As far as what I can tell the scorps seem to be Seradigitus

Here are some pics from Johnny.

Johnny wrote:

Due to overwhelming pressure from Eddy to post some of the pics, here they are, even though im still tired as hell. It was a fun drive and hunt. We drove up and down the roads. For some reason, we unwittingly kept ending up at some Starbucks in Merced. We even slept there in a Mc Donald's parking lot with an escaped spider in the car. We ate so much junk and i wouldnt be surprised if we attracted bears from as far as Yosemite with the food and gases. We had a good conversation with the park keeper that woke us up the last time and remembered us, specially Andrew who told us something funny but thats a conversation for another day. We stopped at Gorman and that is supposed to be a hotspot for scorps, according to the locals, so much that the local store sells mini UV flashlights. We found some good sized scorp holes but dug nothing out. So if you ever think you'll be passing by there in the night, well...you know what.

Templin Hwy stop


Que es....Opilione?


Opilione


Nino de la tierra......found near the town of Raymond



Store clerk at Mariposa: "Yessir, how can I help you?"
Me: "Yes, do you have trash bags?"
Clerk: "We sure do, aisle 6"
Me: "FOUND THEM!!....now do you think the 30 gallon size will fit me?"
Clerk: "I beg your pardon?"
Me: "Well, do you have some of these already open so that I may try one on?"
Clerk: "Uh, ....no, you'll have to buy the whole box"
Me: "OK OK, I'll just have to take a chance that they'll fit me, theyre only $2.99 anways."
Clerk: (after paying, and scratching his forehead with a confused look on his face)......"You guys have a great day and have fun!"

Lemme explain now. We had already stopped by at every store, market and hardware store looking for "ponchos" because it rained ALL NIGHT on Sunday and so we were down to garbage bags.








And now a funny - Two Mexicans walk into a Burger King and the older, good looking, smart one, asks the loud, gum chewing, pierced 17 yr old latina with hairline eyebrows and gold sprinkled two inch nails and a gut popping the bottom button of her BK vest, "Hi, what's your kid's meal toy for the week?"
BK Girl: "Let me check" (and she looks into her toy supply box). "We have the Indiana Jones Invisible Pen"
The two Mexicans simultaneously yell "YESSS" (everyone in the restaurant stops eating and now looking to see what all the commotion is about)
The older Mexican: "We'll take two kids meals to go please!"

Lemme explain: We knew that BK is giving a UV mini flashlight in their kids meals. Thus the excitement because we had already hit a few BKs in L.A. ....And here we are proudly showing them off.




Here I am showing you where Eddy left one of his cojones behind while trying to get over this barbed wire fence and into private property where we could be legally shot as Eddy kept reminding me.



And now some pics. We saw so much wildlife.

















[b]I'll let Eddy explain the wild turkey pic.....(freaky)

Wow, great stories and great pics!

I had to read the BK story to my girlfriend, she already knows about the BK blacklight so it was super funny. Awesome scenery too, glad you could get out of the city!

Beautiful pics, Eddy! Sounds like you had a great time.

You should have kept going north a few hundred miles and stopped by.

Believe it or not I looked at the map and though..... Hmmm oregon isn't that far from here.

Too bad Corvallis is about >230 miles from the California border<.

Damn never mind...i'll drive to Oregon and you can bike the rest of the way.

I'd need a road bike for that. And about a hundred Clif bars.

It's okay I'll wait 'till you get all that...

Let's just hang out at Sky's TITTIES and call it good.

*pauses to see how long that takes to make it to the OOC thread*

Yeah I dont really wanna drive that long. I get sleepy when I'm on the road....oh and consider it there.

man those places look so beautiful.

It was incredible. I love the outdoors as much as I like the L.A.