After years of waiting and multiple failed schemes (which were simple excuses to go places where I MIGHT run into an elephant for kissing), I have finally kissed an elephant. It wasn't the super-caring-loving-trunk-hugging kiss that I wanted it to be; it was only a kiss on my hand straight onto her ear. But it was still a wonderful moment for my life. And an amazing day to boot!
About six weeks ago Dar and I made plans (Because Dar and I are PLANNERS. I love it.) to go elephant-kissing with her kids, Phaedra and Cagney (Similarly, I tried to hook my friend John's 10-year old twins into going to the Insectropolis with me. They were non-plussed on the prospective excursion). She had sent a text about left-over items from past lists and I brought that one up, randomly. I googled elephant rides and low-and-behold, the Natural Bridge Zoo blipped onto my radar.
After devouring Jacob's vanilla french toast and back bacon from the farmers market and watching the last 40K of the Tour of Flanders (or Ronde van Vlaanderen...) Dar and the kids, along with her buddy Tara, packed into the car and headed west!
Phaedra has the cutest toes, in the world. whole wide world.
When we arrived at the zoo, we went straight to the elephant ride, and I immediately started asking questions about her. Like, she is from Africa. They bought her and raised her in Virginia when she was a calf. She loves the winter, actually because they are such large animals, they do very well in the cold. Her owners make sure she does not get frostbite. Her name is Beautiful. Her skin was very strange and thick with dirt, sometimes deep crevasses. There were sporadic wiry hairs.
Here's my problem: I asked if I could kiss her. This issue continuously arises in my life, I never should have asked my camp counselors if I could smoke on the sleep-away camping trip when I was 14, I should have just done it until I was caught. Then I asked "why not?" when she told me I wasn't allowed to kiss her. Apparently, kissing an elephant is on the same ettiquet elevation as kissing a stranger on the street, you just don't do it. Tara had words to the opposite effect. So, I kissed my hand and then placed my kiss on Beautiful's ear (huge, mondo, African-elephant sized ear, which also had some amount of yuck on it which then transfered to Tara's foot when we were riding).
Dar & Cagney (this is a VERY big deal, Dar is not such a huge fan of animals)
Then, we visited the giraffes!
then, the dicks of the animal kingdom (because they spit), llamas.
then, babboons!
(Urban babboon)
flamingos!
bunnies!
guinea pigs!
camels!
kids! (no, seriously, young goats)
Then we were lunch...
nononono, then we ate lunch. At the Pink Cadillac Diner!
and then this happened...
#neverletagirlwithavideocameragounnoticedinthebackseat
and then Phaedra fell asleep in my armpit.
the end.
Yay! I'm so happy about this that I will even overlook your disparaging comments about llamas (DID YOU TOUCH ONE?)!
ReplyDeleteMaybe I should have posted the one where you can see the NASTY underbite and HUGE HUGE teeth on mr.llama. so, no, no touching. I was more scared of a llama than any other animal there. weird, I know. :)
Delete