One Of The Reasons I Used To Like Motel 6...

Click on pic to enlarge.

...was that besides being inexpensive and usually clean, they had a policy allowing you to have pets stay in your room. I never asked them what kind of pets they meant and just assumed they meant all kinds of pets. Back in the summer of 2002, my wife, daughter, son and I visited Arizona. My wife and daughter headed back home after ten days or so but my son and I remained there another week or two to do man things! When all of us were there, we visited a good deal of the state of AZ and also visited Las Vegas, NV. When it was just me and my son, we kind of zeroed in on the southern part of AZ, especially around Tucson, Tombstone, Madera Canyon and the like. While driving down a road near Madera Canyon, around dusk, we spotted a pretty large Gopher Snake on the road. I wanted to catch it but there was a car speeding along not all that far behind us. I waved him of and took off across the road and grabbed this critter on the run. I was never in danger but the snake sure would have been as it was soaking in the heat rising up from the blacktop. 

My son and I decided it was a keeper and we took it back to the motel with us once we were done herping (looking for reptiles and amphibians) for the night. Luckily we were saying at a Motel 6 with there 'pets allowed' policy. I wonder what the manager would have thought, had he seen us the next day, out in the parking lot taking this picture. Heck, that was a long time ago - I was in my late forties and my son was almost 13. How time flies (or should I say slithers).

All the best,
GB