Excuse me sir...

Um..Marc? Yes you have something on your shirt. Yes, I assumed you know I'm wondering how much it is? Fifteen bucks for that! What a deal! I'll take it!

Those and other ridiculous things could be overheard at this years Northwest Reptile and Exotics Expo. I was in my glory. Ruth is a wonderful wife for coming with me.



I'm afraid I probably fit right in with this crowd. Bald guy in a leather jacket, to whom the pet shop employees often greet with the question, "you look like a guy who needs pinky mice."

No sir, but could please point me towards your flightless fruit flys and several thousand crickets?

With price tags like this, who can afford these gorgeous animals anyways?



But then you see one of these and it's like the price doesn't matter.



Babe, can I keep it? please? I won't let it escape or bite you, I promise. I'll also try not to let it grow to it's full size of eight feet.

I've never been much of a snake enthusiast, but Ruth admitted she was praising God while looking at some of these beautiful creatures.



There were several buckets of 'beardies' (bearded lizards).



I'd like that one please. No, not that one, that one. Yeah the one with the stripes..no, no, no, the other one with the stripes.


Check this out. Just when I thought I could use the argument against Ruth that this is one of the cheaper hobbies I could get into...click on this picture...



See the price tag on the left? A thousand bucks for that hairy little, eight-legged mom spooker. Seems like for a few hundred extra you could go on vacation to the place where that spider lives and smuggle it home in a suitcase. It might be illegal but I'm just saying...

The main reason, of course, that I went to this Expo and the reptile that brought me into the hobby, the chameleons...





We went to Pams Chams booth to see the many different panther chameleons that I find so beautiful. Check out this gorgeous guy...




Both those picture are of the same animal. Notice how he "fires up" when I stick the camera in his face. What an amazing creature. Only further evidence to me that this world was designed by an engineer/artist. This couldn't have possibly been an accident.

Many thanks to my lovely wife for enduring this strange boyhood hobby, and for coming along to the Expo even though she was feeling pretty sick this weekend. And thanks to her also for sharing the house with 'Otto' and all the little "things" he likes to eat. More on that in some other blog post. ;)





See you all next year!