Camels and Characters – Washington State Chapter 1

You can’t make this stuff up.

This is Izzy the camel, who lives in Eastern Washington. I stopped on my roadtrip over to a wedding to see her because I love camels and was a little surprised to see one out here. Llamas, schmamas. This was a camel! She was very nice, besides the initial growl on my approach, with a very soft nose.

While I was petting her, and the tiny donkey tied to the outside of the post, I started talking to a rough looking old biker guy who came up to pet the camel and donkey.

After a nice exchange he said, “My name is Gary. Most people call me peg-leg.” He knocked on his lower right calf, clearly wooden. He invited me to come back to Walla Walla next weekend to watch his motorcycle drag race.

I met up with mom and dad and we went to the JCPenny to order some blinds for their church. They managed to start a rapture conversation with the store clerk, who shared their Christian beliefs and remarked what a shame it was that people have to ruin the rapture like that.

In the van with my parents, listening to Christian radio, a woman is praising the spirituality of PMS. “…and then in the cycle you get this wonderful surge of estrogen that helps you think clearly…”

In other observations, I was the thinnest person at the Timber Creek Grill Buffet today, except for maybe a 9 year old girl. I blame my new sugar-free diet for my extra sexiness and all the “looks”.

I stopped into the Skippers restaurant to use the restroom and the smell of grease was really nauseating. The bathroom was horrendous (smelled like an outhouse, doors were on their 3rd set of latches that didn’t line up, toilet was running constantly and would not flush) BUT one great feature (surely a mistake) was that the automatic towel dispenser was mounted at least six feet high, meaning you had to make an effort to reach up and wave at the sensor. It worked perfectly, and appeared to have no handprints on it. I would recommend all auto sense dispensers be placed at this level. Because it was so high up, I waved at it with a sense of caution, rather than the usual method of pounding the sensor with the pinky finger side of my fist. Longevity!