HISTORY & TRAVEL
My wife’s mom (known as Nana in our house) came
with us as she was visiting with us for 2 months and
my wife (Mary) kept talking about how her and her
mom were going to ride the elephant together, which
would leave me and Keelyn (my nearly 3 year old
daughter) on an elephant together. It was a brilliant
plan particularly due to the fact that I know my wife
would be completely nervous on the elephant and
would probably be freaking out with Keelyn being
on an elephant as well. This would allow me to not
to be distracted and Keelyn and I would be able to
enjoy the ride and we could take some great photos
together. As we came to the point where we were
going to mount onto the elephant there was an older
lady there whose party had not shown up yet and she
was a bit nervous about going on the elephant alone.
Being polite I invited her to join Keelyn and myself on
our elephant which inadvertently started a game of
musical elephants. All this was taking place as we were
in the queue to get on the elephants mind you with our
turn drawing near. As it turned out my wife ended up
with Keelyn and myself and Nana ended up with the
lady. Then of course there was the debate on what we
should take on the elephant and leave behind. So the
bags were left behind and a nappy was brought, which
I was responsible for of course – as if we were ever
going to change a nappy on a 6 ton elephant trancing
through a jungle ever. Thankfully all that was sorted
just in time for us to climb onto the elephant. Oh yes
there was the nervous bit where I had my daughter in
my arms and was trying to focus on climbing onto the
elephant while my wife instructed me from behind.
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Fall 2016 1961 Magazine
Needless to say we made it just fine, while my wife
made it on with a little encouragement as she was
noticeably distraught and nervous. Thankfully the seat
had a bar that came down to hold us in, however that
wasn’t the end of the concern as Keelyn’s safety was
taking center stage (I had both arms wrapped around
her and she was on my lap by the way). Then the
elephant trainer started off and Mary was very jumpy.
Now, elephants aren’t exactly the best creatures to ride
on if you’re a nervous type. They’re huge and tend to
sway back and forth. The other thing is you actually
have to balance the people load or your seat drifts to
one side or the other while you’re swaying back and
forth. This didn’t help the situation really. My wife is
the one with the closed eyes probably praying I think.
We had multiple stops where we had to readjust the
weight by shifting from one side to the other. During
which, (who am I kidding?), the entire time my wife
looked as though she was going to jump out of her
skin. Needless to say, I didn’t dare loosen my choke
hold grip on Keelyn. This just went on and on and yes it
was amazing to be on the elephant but it wasn’t quite
turning out to be the experience I had imagined. Now
the eventually elephant stopped to pull a branch off
some tasty looking tree and chew on it. I had both
arms wrapped around Keelyn and my wife looked
like a cat on a hot tin roof, so to speak. During this
intermission, of course the forgotten nappy fell to the
jungle floor below, which Nana (from the elephant
behind) began shouting how we couldn’t leave it as
one of the elephants might eat it and my wife was
trying to convince her that we would just leave it