Betz's Camel Page

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Chaos at the Airport (500,000 people traveled through here in a weekend)

Scottsdale 1

Scottsdale 2

Scottsdale 3

80 degrees and Christmas trees!

Nello's Pizza - mmmm

Derek hamming

Our hottie waitress, Veronica

Rest Area en route	Rest Area 2	Rest Area 3	Rest Area 4
Rest Area 5	Prickly Pear	The Palace on Whiskey Row	Original saloon doors
The wall at The Palace		Thumb Butte in background	Fascinating little town: Jerome
	Unfortunately, no time to stop	Winding Mountainous Road from Prescott to Sedona	Derek got really nauseous on the "long and winding road."
I would have too, if I hadn't begged for the front seat.	Sedona stop 1 (thankfully, no longer queasy!)	Do not look directly into the sun for photos.	Tickling Snoopy's feet (one of the formations is said to look like Snoopy, lying on his back)

I know it's tempting to open the picture below, but I suggest reading this descriptive/set-up paragraph first.

On our second-to-last day in Arizona, we had about an hour to kill before a dinner reservation at Pasta Brioni. We drove around in "Paradise Valley," a wealthy neighborhood near Scottsdale, checking out how "the other half" lives. Cathie had to take a detour because the road she wanted to take us down was closed for construction. This turned out to be an extremely propitious twist of fate, and yielded the highlight of the trip. Right there, in the middle of upscale suburbia, was a farm...totally out of place but quite welcome as far as I was concerned. I saw goats and, of course, had to stop for pictures. After I shouted, "Goooooats!" to the others in the car, nearly scaring their pants off with my volume, we realized there were not only goats, but llamas and emus as well. Then, as we oooohed and aahhhhed (and I giggled) over these critters, we were stunned to see that this suburban ranch had a CAMEL as well. She walked quickly toward us from the 100 yards away when she saw us by the fence. The camel, whom I have nicknamed Chrissy, was a beautiful, gentle creature (so soft and clean!), allowed us to pet her. Then she tried to eat a leaf on my shirt! Click on the photo and you can clearly see her nibbling at the green leaf on my right boob.

One does not know what true love is until one has been nuzzled by a gentle dromedary.

I kicked myself for having used up the entire disk in the Handycam digital video camera; it had run out just minutes before, and I didn't have an extra disk. (What kind of a tourist AM I?) But my trusty little ELPH digital camera has the ability to take brief video clips, so I was able to snatch some limited video footage of the unexpected rendezvous with the hoofed ones.

The following clip was shot before we knew that Chrissy was a gentle family pet, and not a vicious attack camel. It shows Chrissy lumbering toward me (I'm holding the camera and narrating), and then me getting scared because Chrissy is so BIG and (potentially) angry. For the best experience, turn on the sound on your computer because you can hear me shriek. Click on the picture to watch the video. It's a big AVI file--17.7 MB--so if you have dial-up, forget about it.

Here are two other video clips from the ELPH (this camera rocks by the way). These are as big or bigger than the one above, so don't try to open them if you have a slow connection.

Me petting Chrissy (33.4 MB)

Derek petting Chrissy (14.8 MB)

Eventually we had to say goodbye to Chrissy, and we continued toward Scottsdale for dinner at Pasta Brioni.