Field trip: Reptile Show

WARNING: if you are at all squeamish about snakes, just skip this post. Seriously.
Last Saturday, there was a reptile show in Columbia and I took Hayes and Chooj. Hayes loves reptiles and I love her. So there you go.
First of all, if you go to a show where a few people are wearing these shirts, I would think there would be cause for concern.

After all, there were a good number of venomous snakes, like this cobra, or this rattlesnake in a plastic container.
Look here, this is the first thing we saw: all of those plastic containers have snakes in them. There were tables and tables like this.
And then you'd have your box of writhing boas.

Freaky. I haven't had nightmares ... yet.
No, what Hayes did was hold up one of these plastic containers right up to my face and said,"Unitsi, look!" and there was a tarantula. I am petrified of spiders and I told her I thought that deserved a beating.
There was a 12 foot albino boa constrictor, but you had to pay $6 for a photo. Hayes held her hand up to its face while its long pink tongue flicked her palm and it was hissing. She said,"Pet it, Unitsi." Sure. I'll just stay down on this end ... 12 feet away from that hissing head.
Along with the myriad of snakes being bought, sold and traded, there were some interesting turtles, like these from Madagascar.

And there were lots of bearded dragons and this beautiful gecko.

Here's a monitor lizard:

and here's an enormous monitor lizard:

Hayes kept asking me to buy her everything: a snake, a little turtle, a dragon. So she finally said,"I know where I can get lizards for FREE."
And I'll tell you about that in the next post.