I have always had an infatuation with animals, which I can’t seem to trace back to any hereditary trait, so I’m not sure where it originated. (Maybe one day some scientist will discover a gene for animal obsession, but until then, people will just continue to think I’m weird). Another interesting point: my obsession is entirely dependent upon my environment.
For two weeks, while on a environmental restoration trip in the Shenandoah area, I was determined to spot a black bear. And for two weeks, as if knowing we were playing a game of hide and seek, the black bears hid from me. In hindsight, I guess it wasn’t difficult to hide from the loud bravado stampeding through the Shenandoah. It wasn’t until the final evening when, annoyed with my besetment of bear dialogue, the rest of the team piled into a car and we drove around the winding roads until we finally spotted a black bear. YES! Oh yea, did I mention this was after college?
When recounting this story on three separate occasions to my mother, father, and then sister, I received the exact same response. Rolled eyes and some dismissive comment about how some things never change. Apparently, as a child (and by that, I mean a high school student) my family vacationed to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. The rest of my family all happened to have the same memory of me forcing the family to continue trekking through the mountains in search of the elusive moose. I was apparently blackout for this entire episode, but, am thankful to hear that I did, in fact, find the moose! YES!
So it comes as no surprise that my excursion to the Middle East brought about a newly cemented camel obsession. I embraced the inner tourist and was determined to ride a camel. The opportunity did not present itself until the end of the trip, in Jordan.
Aside: While I am magnetically drawn to animals, I do not have much success in riding them. I have a fair amount of confidence that I am the only person in the world to have fallen off of a stationary horse. The scenario went something like this: Hop on the saddle, saddle rolls off, back on the ground just as fast as I unsuccessfully mounted the horse. So it also comes as no surprise that my camel-riding entourage bestowed upon me the superlative most likely to fall off a camel – which, I boastfully did not do, albeit, may have been closest to falling off.
I can count very few times in my life where I have been as happy as I was when I sat mounted atop my camel. However, after a few minutes of riding, I found myself in a balancing act, trying to protect the nape of my back from hitting the upper back saddle and sliding forward consequently causing my pants to constrict my freedom. The novelty of riding wore off pretty fast, or at least faster than the bruise on my back.
Based on my observations and research, the childhood song about Sally the camel is fraudulent and misrepresentative. For starters, Sally flat out lied about her lovely lady lumps. Camels can only have a maximum of two humps. Well, it turns out that Sally wasn’t even a camel – she was a horse the entire time! Also, a little unknown fact. Horses detest the smell of camels and are consequently harder to control around them. I can only imagine the inner conflict Sally had impersonating a camel while detesting her own camel odor the entire time. What a poser.
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