Mike and I drove down to Kentucky on Friday evening, set up camp and hung out. We got up Saturday morning and headed out to meet up with Brian Baker and his friend Steve Craig. We were going to herp in Hart County, Kentucky, looking for all the normal Kentucky species, but especially Kentucky Cornsnakes. The first location we stopped was a tin site and it at had only a couple of ringnecks. The second site was an old farmhouse, and all we turned up was a Red-Bellied Snake (Storeria occipitomaculata). I didn't work to hard at getting pics because it didn't want to sit still.

The next area was a junk site near a house. It was a really nice location, and it seemed sure we would find something here. All we turned up was this Alligator that Mike wrassled.

Our next stop was another tin site, and though we flipped a lot of nice tin, all we turned up was this Eastern Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis).

It was pretty, and was one of the few snakes we had seen, so I took a little time and shot a couple of pics.

We stopped at another really nice tin site, and came up empty again. On the way out we found this Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta) crossing the road. The first two shots are in situ.

At one of our last stops, another tin site, we turned up this really beat up Black Racer (Coluber constrictor).

We had lunch with Brian and Steve, then Mike and I headed out on our own to try and find some sites to flip stuff. We drove around for a really long time without really seeing anywhere to stop. At one point we drove past a trailer with some junk around it. We stopped at the next house, and there was a guy out mowing his lawn. We asked him if anyone would care if we flipped some junk at the trailer, and he told us not only would that be fine, but we could also walk a trail in the back of his property and find some rocks to flip near a stream. We took him up on it, and walked down the hill to the stream. The rocks were really nice, and we started to find some salamanders.

This was a Two-Lined Salamander (Eurycea cirrigera).

Slimy Salamanders (Plethodon glutinosus)

Cave Salamander (Eurycea lucifuga)

I also found this Eastern Worm Snake (Carphophis amoenus)

Worm Snakes are a favorite of mine, and I always enjoy seeing them. They are usually pretty difficult to get decent pictures of too.

When we were walking back up to the house, the owner was walking down to meet us with a couple glasses of ice water. We got to talking and I mentioned that I had noticed a martial arts style kicking bag in his backyard. I asked him if he practiced martial arts, and he said he did. I asked him what style, and he said he studied Wing Chun. What are the odds of me running into someone in the middle of nowhere Kentucky that practices the same martial art that I do? Wing Chun isn't like Tae Kwon Do, whose students are everywhere.

We worked Wing Chun techniques for about twenty minutes. It was pretty crazy. That pretty much wrapped up the day, as Mike and I headed back to our campsite. Mike cooked us up an awesome dinner, the first of many on the trip, we tipped a few brews and we packed it in for the night.