For this week's hike, my friends and I met up in one of our favorite hiking places, Pine Street Woods. Pine Street Woods is on the edge of Sandpoint, Idaho. It's a 180 acre community forest that is part of a land trust.
Now, in the past we had always parked at the bottom of the mountain and hiked up the hill, but for this particular outing, we drove up to the main entrance and wound up the mountain to the official Pine Street Woods parking area.
I arrived a bit before my pals, so I took a few minutes of chill time and parked my worn out carcass on one of the wood slab benches scattered around the parking area.
As I was sitting there, my little hobbit legs dangling in the air (I swear they make most benches for people of lofty stature), I noticed a horse trailer parked in the trees on the edge of the parking lot. I found that a bit strange because I had only ever seen hikers, bikers, and dog walkers in the woods.
Then I heard a goat bleat.
My friends arrived at that moment, and after a bit of roasting of how cute I looked sitting on that bench with my legs dangling, we started off our hike by heading toward the meadow.
It was there that I got a pleasant existential surprise.
A camel stared back at me!
Now, camels are not a common sight in North Idaho. Deer, moose, and squirrels sure, but camels? Not common at all.
In front of me was a bunch of electrified netting, and in the netting was an assortment of ruminants. Camels, sheep, goats, and llamas abounded, and then I saw something even more mirth inducing.
A man in a loincloth stood amongst the animals. Two men actually.
Channeling our paleolithic ancestors, a dreadlocked, tanned man stood proudly with the flock, which I assumed was there for fire fuel suppression reasons (This was later confirmed by signs scattered along the main trail). Not gonna lie though, it was just a surreal sight to see two scantily clad men with a flock of animals. I felt like I won a trip to a Neolithic herding exhibit at some living museum.
And as an added bonus, in a section of fencing adjacent to the first herd was a small herd of yaks! I adore yaks.
So yes, my hike with my buds started off awesome!
After that scene, the rest of the hike and our afternoon progressed how it normally does, beautiful scenes, glorious conversation, and a magnificent lunch!
We always end one of our hikes with some local grub. That day we parked at the free city parking lot in downtown Sandpoint and strolled over to The Burger Dock. The day just kept on going awesome for me. After I ordered my burger and handcut fries, the cashier handed me my order number, to which I replied, "Execute Order 66."
The youngin behind the counter looked blank, to which I gleefully replied, "It's a Star Wars reference," as I reached forward and clutched my Jedi-ending order number.
Several minutes later as I munched on my bacon laden burger on the patio, I smiled in absolute elated existential joy. I was fully clothed, fully exercised, and fully full. Life is good...
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's still in camel sighting shock iPhone.
