The one where I ride the camel

It is cliche to say, but life lately has been too crazy to allow time to blog.

However, I couldn't let this pass by.

Yes, I'm on a camel. Yes, I'm making a ridiculous face. He had just stood up. It was scary. Want a better one? Here.

One of the perks to being a journalist is being able to write about people who own a camel, zebra, zonkey and other animals. One of the perks to being an editor is being able to assign myself to these types of stories. And one of the perks to working with awesome photographers is getting these types of photos. And then having them put together these types of photo galleries. Really, you need to click that last link because then you'll see photographer Alan Murray's evidence of the zebra and zonkey.

So. What I learned from riding a camel (even if it was just for two minutes):

• This particular animal, Moses, doesn't like having a saddle situated on him. He yells and screams. But he does quite well once it's on.
• Camels have really thick wool. So thick it's hard to put all of your fingers on their skin and not watch your hand disappear into their wool.
• They have large, ugly mouths with buck teeth.
• But Moses does not spit.
• When they kneel down for you to get off of them, it feels like a roller coaster ride. Moses puts his front legs down first, which results in the rider nearly catapulting forward. At the last moment, I figured out I had to lean straight back in order not to fall forward.
• They're really quite nice. Moses was a sweety.

Also, when your boss puts a photo in the newspaper of you riding a camel as part of his weekly column, every single person you call that day will want to comment on it. So, yeah. That was fun.