Only in Texas...

While out riding through the county on my bike, I have seen lots of interesting things, pretty flowers, clouds, flattened fauna, etc.  Most of the time I don't stop, and whip out the camera for a picture.  This is a failing on my part.  The only camera I usually take is what comes with my cellphone, and it rides in the bag on the back of the bike, making it somewhat inconvenient to stop and take a picture.

Still, once in a while something just begs to be photographed, like yesterday.  I was riding down a familiar road, but ended up seeing something unexpected.

No, not the burros.  They're everywhere in Texas for some reason.  They're like pets, or something here.  Every hobby-rancher-farmer seems to have a couple.  I thought at first they were being used to guard other livestock, but no.  Usually the burros are alone in fields, often in numbers large enough to be small herds of them.  Oh they're cute enough, but I never see anyone doing anything with them--they're not hitched up to carts, they're not being ridden, no one plows with them....I guess they really are just BIG pets!

And then there are the exotics...folks who ranch unusual species of deer (Fallow, Stag, etc).  Those are also along one of my routes, but they are often hiding in the trees and behind high fencing.  And one place has zebras and I think a giraffe!  I tell ya, it's a Zoo down here!

But yesterday, I saw this...and in a field with burros no less!  It's on a road I have ridden a lot, and never seen this creature there before yesterday.  I don't know if it is new to the land, or if I just never had the good fortune to see it until now, but here it is!

 

 Yes, that is a camel.  In Texas.  Grazing.  Go figure...  

(It's a Dromedary, not Bactrian.)