While we slept, the rain fell and the cold front swept through, and in the morning we crawled out of our tents to a cloudy greyness and the temperature at 42F. A hundred yards away the swollen Mississippi coursed though the Grand Tower narrows before spilling out into a wide bend. This place was the home of river pirates a hundred and more years ago, but today it was populated by retired folks still snuggled in their motor homes, along with a handful of chilled field herpers.

There was no need to hurry on a morning like this, and after breakfast the whole gang took a little hike up a promontory on the north end of the campground to have a look around and get a view from up high. There were rock ledges and thick bushes aplenty, and if the temperature had been thirty degrees warmer, we might have entertained thoughts of finding some herpetofauna. All we could scare up at the moment were a couple of wrens.

On the back side of the promontory I spotted a likely looking log, and moving in closer discovered a thoroughly chilled and immobile skink of the five lined variety, clinging to the topside. Cool - here was a chance to grab a photo of a blue-tail without having the thing dash away. "Hey, there's a snake under there!" said Don, pointing to one side. Sure enough, there was a large Black Rat Snake tucked snugly underneath the log - I hadn't gotten past the frozen lizard yet!

The snake was hauled out for inspection. This Blackie was all of four feet, and had a strong pattern with lots of red between the scales, along with a meal or two on the inside. It had been caught out in the open by the sudden cold snap, much like the skink on top of the log. The previous day had been warm and sunny, and the crew had had a great day on the Snake Road, with thirteen Black Rat Snakes encountered, not to mention a nice Timber Rattler. Today was certainly a different story.

We puttered around a bit more, but only managed to turn up a couple Slimy Salamanders. Now the sun was beginning to poke through the cloud cover, so we headed over to the LaRue - Pine Hills Ecological Area. We stopped along a wet wooded area on the south side, hoping to find some salamanders under logs. No sallies were present but I managed to kick up a small Yellowbellied Water Snake, which had just crawled out of a pile of brush to catch some sun. That was encouraging - other snakes would certainly follow suit.