Homicidal Camel

No, that title is not a mistake. 

Here's the deal.

We went to the Hogle Zoo on Monday.  The Hogle Zoo is a family tradition, and the Rowley's gave us a year pass for Christmas!  Yeah!  We met Mom at the zoo (another tradition but we missed Dad).  It was a  beautiful day! Check out the sunshine in Grace's face.

Our kids really love the animals and we took our time enjoying them all.  We  look for some that we remember every year- like the nearly hairless and barely  moving old monkey.  He's cute in an old man kind of way.  

 (Notice I'm holding on to the "good" story until the end so you'll read my blog.  Unless 

your like my friend Linda who reads the ends of stories first and has no problem with that.  Then you may skip to the end of this blog and read the juicy stuff)

Another tradition is having your picture taken with the lion drinking fountain

 and measuring yourself up against the gorilla.  I'm pretty sure I could dig up a picture of myself in front of that drinking fountain. 

 But for fun I thought I'd post Chloe in front of the gorilla in 2002 and 2009 just to make myself sad about how fast she's growing.  

A new thing we did this year was ride the Conservation Carousel.  It is an additional cost, so I was passing it up, but I think Grandma had visions of a little boy riding the carousel at Disneyland 10 times and the joy it brought and she couldn't resist.  I have to say that this carousel is one of the coolest looking ones I've seen.  The animals are really fantastic.  I especially like the praying mantis.

Cole rode the polar bear and smiled and waved every time he came around. Asher rode an awesome and fierce looking gorilla and Aidan rode the buffalo like it was a bucking bronco.  

He put on a little show every time he came around.  Slapping the buffalo's backside, yelling "yee-haw", riding the buffalo backwards.  

You may have noticed Chloe was not on the carousel.  She gets dizzy like her mother.

This is one of my favorite pictures because I threw Cole in it in a hurry at the last minute.  Notice his seat is one of the rhino's horns.  I love the look on his face, "Whatever Mom, make me sit on a rhino horn. Who cares about my comfort, it's all about you and the pictures isn't it?" 

Do you enjoy these 2 giraffe pictures.  One I took, one Asher took.  Can you tell which is which?

I thought I got lucky when the giraffe seemed to sense my presence and turned to look right at me and my camera.  Asher took my camera inside the giraffe pen and shot this naughty little guy in a giraffe line-up.  

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for and the namesake of this blog- 

Honestly the camel pen is but a passing moment.  They are usually loosing their hair, they just stand there and we are tired and ready to go home at this point.  Today however, two of the camels were fighting and biting each other. I commented: "Oh look at those two naughty brother camels biting and fighting with each other.  And there's the Momma over their getting a drink saying 'You two just fight it out'".  

Well, then the camels broke it up.  But I think the one brother was all riled up still.  He turns from his brother and spots the sweet little goose family wandering through his pen and heads after them.  We are all watching and waiting.  And oh, have you  met my Mom?  She has an extremely loud voice.  This voice was gifted to her to ensure her children could hear her above the roaring crowd, cheering them on at any sporting event.  She used this voice here at the zoo as the drama was unfolding.  "STOP!  NO! GET AWAY CAMEL!"

That testosterone filled camel continued to hunt down those baby geese and began rearing back and stomping his feet in an attempt to squish one of the little fuzz balls.  He kept stomping and stomping. Most everyone was yelling at this point and only that electric fence held my Mom back.  (Scott has an awesome electric fence story by the way.)  One of the baby goslings was flung into the air, but somehow missed the camels hooves.  We couldn't believe they all escaped unharmed.  The mama goose directed them all to the edge of the pen and the grumpy camel went for a drink.  Whew.

It was an adrenaline filled moment.  Of course we contacted zoo personnel, but they told us the geese were wild, they got in and they'll have to get themselves out.  Sing with me now, "It's the circle of life.." Anyhow, that was our adventurous day at the zoo.