I guess it's better than hitch hiking?

Just a few months after we first moved here, I was driving along a country road and nearly drove into a ditch. I was slowly getting accustomed to seeing a variety of animals grazing in all the pastures around here but this one…this one I was not prepared for.

There, munching…and as it turns out, molting…right at the fence line was a camel.

Once I righted the car, I immediately called Rob.

“There’s a CAMEL in a pasture down by the lake!”

Being the proper recent suburbanite transplants that we were, we both returned shortly thereafter with wide eyes and a camera.

So yesterday, nearly eight years later, driving by that same lake, I placed another incredulous phone call to Rob.

“I just saw a TAXI leaving the lake!”

A taxi? I have never in eight years here seen a taxi out in the hinterlands. What in the world was a taxi doing out the wilderness? Someone took a taxi to go fishing?

I know people are really annoyed by the newly imposed “Discover Pass” fee required for enjoying a number of the beautiful lakes and parks around the state. (Yeah, we don’t have state income taxes in Washington but we pay for it in other ways. This is one.) I can’t imagine, though, that a taxi fare would be cheaper than the $10 one-day pass. Nor just getting fresh fish from a friend. I don’t think you can live here for more than a year without having at least two sources of fresh fish from hobby-happy friends and neighbors. That goes for fresh eggs, too.

At first I was sort of sad to see the taxi. It felt like a big-city interloper (it takes one to know one). But then my mood shifted to sweet gratitude that instead of being stunned by nature, I am now stunned by modernity. Eight years in the boonies and counting!