On the hike out yesterday we came across a Rosy Boa on the trail. I,ve been hiking around the San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains for years and had never seen one. Its a really beautiful snake. The skin is extremely smooth compared to other snakes, it has a small head unlike the large heads of rattlers. The tail is very blunt and rounded and it was greyish with large Rosy brown strips down its entire length. This snake was completely non aggressive and I picked it up out of a bush and held it for about 10 minutes. A son and his dad came up the Bowen trail and I let the kid hold it for a bit. I let it go right were I found it and continued up the trail. A few minutes later we came across a medium sized horned toad. My little muchkins had never seen one so I caught it and they got a good close look at it and pet it a little. Its funny because a few hours earlier at the springs I was talking to a regular I'd known for years and we got on the subject of these horned toads and he said he always thought that it was really a type of toad. I told him it was just a very differant lizard. Further up the trail we found an area where there were big 2 inch catapillers in some brush. I tried to pick one of them up to show the kids and that sucker wasn't havin any part of that. It had a sharp spike stickin out of its behind and kept whipping it toward my finger and then spit up some green stuff in defense. I got the message and we went on our way :-) Butterflies, the flowers of the sky were in abundance. There were lots of " Painted Ladies " and at one spot on route 4 as we drove in there was a whole swarm of them in a pass between two hills by the spot where old route 2 turned east. There were also quite a few white ones and a few of the big, yellow and black, Monarch like butterflies. Early in the day at the springs was rather light for this holiday weekend but late in the day things started picking up and we saw a couple groups of younger people heading down as we hiked out with gear to apparently stay over night. It was perfect weather and not to hot like it had been in the middle of last week. Saw some regulars like Joe and Al and had a nice talk with them. We spent most of our time around the Arizona pool since there is alot of area for the kids to run around. Sorry to have missed you DCR and Craig. Would have come on Sunday but we had already made plans to see my wifes mom. I know you will have a great time Sunday! Happy Soakin :-)