When I was growing up I spent a good part of my summers at camp in the North Carolina mountains. My first camp experience was at Camp Gwynn Valley which was an awesome experience that I hope I have the opportunity to replicate for my own kids one day. At this camp we grew and picked our own vegetables (talk about farm to table!), took corn to the mill to grind into cornmeal and made cornbread for almost every meal, milked cows and watched farm animals being born. It was truly like living on a farm! As cool as all that stuff was, by far the most memorable thing for me was camping with llamas. The camp had these two llamas that you could essentially "rent out" when your cabin went on an outing. You'd pack all your gear onto these llamas and hike into the woods to set up camp. All good in theory, right? Right. Except those llamas had some serious 'tude. A thirty minute hike into the woods could easily turn into two and a half hours when the llamas decided they were no longer interested in walking. Pull as you might, they would just sway their long necks as if to say, "oh no you didn't!" and dig their heels in. No amount of pulling or coaxing on your part (or from your fellow campers from your cabin or counselors) could convince them to move forward. In fact, if you tried too hard and truly pissed them off, they'd just spit on you. So, ultimately you'd just have to sit and wait until they were ready to walk on to the camp site.
It was something about their strong, comical personalities that stuck with me. And let's face it, they some awesome looking animals. I am constantly on the internet sourcing and shopping and have recently noticed that maybe I'm not the only one that thinks llamas are super cool. They are popping up everywhere. In fact, I read something the other day that said "Llamas are the new unicorn!"
As a tribute to my love of llamas, I've rounded up my favorite llama finds:
Anyone else have any good llama stories? Happy weekend!
xo,
Cameron
