Big Foot Encounter

Mike and I were sitting on the couch this morning watching TV when Simon started barking uncontrollably while looking out the window. This is nothing unusual for him, so we paused what we were watching, hollered at him to be quiet, and when he wouldn't, I went over picked him up and brought him over to sit with us. He does NOT like this when he sees something outside he wants to bark at, so I spent a few moments trying to get him to quit squirming. It all happened so fast after that it took me a while to process what happened next.

As we are sitting there trying to calm Simon, a white fluffy mass bounces across our yard. Mike and I immediately looked at each other with a puzzled look on our face to see if we really saw what we saw: a white animal--too tall for a goat, bouncy like a kangaroo, and what seemed like a shaved llama. What the?!

We immediately ran to the window and watched as the creature bounced through my dad's empty lot next door and back behind the neighbor's back yard. "What WAS THAT," we both screamed, while simultaneously grabbing our coat and throwing on shoes. I scrambled for my camera and we raced out the door to check out what had just darted through our yard. I tried to have my camera ready while running through the lot just in case we got another glimpse, but I must say running and focusing a camera is not an easy task.

I guess we were running to hard and fast because as we rounded the corner of my neighbor's backyard, the critter, who had stopped for a breath, started darting into the woods behind our neighbor's house. I quickly snapped my camera and got a glimpse of him, but it's pretty blurry. I immediately went to make a call and ask my dad what it could possibly be (because he knows a lot about weird animals). His best guess, based on our description and the crappy photo that I snapped was that it was an alpaca (see picture below).

Now, I don't know about you, but my first question after "What WAS THAT," was "Why the heck is an alpaca running through our neighborhood??" I couldn't figure it out, but I came to the conclusion that someone is going to be missing that weird guy...after some research, I discovered he could be worth anywhere between $100 and $500,000. For the sake of the owner, I hope he was only worth $100 and wasn't some big time show alpaca that ran his half a million dollar booty through our yard.

Made for an interesting start to Valentine's Day, that's for sure. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it.

Our alpaca looked to have been recently shaved and was not as furry as the other picture below.