Reptiles at Risk

Fireworks and Friends...

Posted by Jeff Hathaway on July 26, 2007 at 4:21 PM

Well, we were up ridiculously early… about 3 am since there was a thunder and lightning storm right over our trailer. The thunder was so loud and so close it was actually shaking the trailer in some cases! We also lost our power so we the ice cream we had bought the day before melted in the freezer!

The animal cages on the top row were all soaked…. (James- I apparently am not great with a caulking gun…) and we were a little damp ourselves from the infamous leaks in the trailer. But, we now know where they all are thanks to the teeming rain we had all night. We also discovered that if it rains hard enough, it can come in through the closed windows.

We were on time leaving this morning and got to the library a bit early which was great! There were 80 people who came to see us and the kids were SOOO incredibly great.

We ended up doing pictures of people with a snake (for a donation of $5) which went really well as everyone wanted to have their picture taken with their favorite snake. We are doing this at some venues to help raise additional funds for our tour, as our funding for the maritime provinces is very limited and it looks like we will be overbudget.

We printed off the animal permit stuff we needed for New Brunswick, and then we were able to fax it off which was great! Then I went to get my computer for the blog updates and went out the wrong door- I set off the fire alarm! Which was interesting- it must happen a lot since no one actually moved. One kid asked his parent what the sound was. I then decided to use the main entrance. (Note from Sarah Jane: as I was editing this (otherwise you’d have 3 page long blog entries from Mary Ellen describing how wonderful EVERYTHING is), I burst out laughing, because I hadn’t known it was Mary Ellen who’d set off the fire alarm….look what happens when we leave her unattended…).

The afternoon show was at the Nick Smith Center, in Arnprior, and it was huge! We were expecting only a few day camp groups but we had almost 300 kids. They were a good group but it took quite a while to get everyone organized and get started. The hands-on part was interesting as there were so many kids; we had some camp staff who were able to help out and most of the kids were super great with the snakes.

Next stop was to mail some letters and then we went to Giant tiger. We picked up a few things (cool socks mostly, the Sarah’s held off on their bathing suit addiction) and then continued on our way to Fitzroy Provincial Park. Before the show, we had a visit from Katharine Gahan, the first-ever Sciensational Sssnakes!! staff member (summer 2003 and 2004) and her partner Travis. Katharine was impressed with our mode of travel- when she and Jeff first toured northern Ontario, it was in a Suzuki Sidekick with a tent!

We had a small crowd at Fitzroy- we started off with 12 and by the time we finished we had 36 people. Jonathan (our web master) and Jennifer met us here and took video and pictures of us for the web site. Afterwards, they were came to the trailer for a little while to hang out, and we made popcorn. Correction- I attempted to make microwave popcorn and failed miserably as when we opened the bag, there was a big black ball of what was I think at one time was corn kernels. Sarah Jane says she will make popcorn from now on, since it’s one of the things she knows how to cook). And yes, we do have a microwave in the trailer. It’s practically luxurious compared to previous road trips, as Katharine would attest!

Smiles and laughter,
Mary Ellen