Elephants!

What day is it? Brad and I keep asking each other. We even had to check the net to be sure. A lot has happened this week, but for now I'll go all the way back to Monday...

All way back to Monday:
We spent the day at Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai. The park is a refuge for abused and disused elephants. Until the late 80's elephants were used for logging in Thailand, so after that industry was shut down there were many homeless and damaged elephants. Even though elephants are HUGE! they're really sensitive creatures. Many at the park had been hurt by humans: some blinded, some with broken limbs, others orphaned and rescued.
We had such a great time spending the day with the park's elephants. We got to feed them, bathe them, kiss them, and get right down on the ground with them.

Brad was like one with the elephants. He wasn't afraid at all.
This is the park's naughty boy: Hope. He wears a bell, so they say, "You can always hear trouble coming."
Later, another elephant stole these leaves from her head. Elephants are all about shade. Immediately after we bathed them, they covered themselves in mud for sunscreen.
Baby elephants are so cute!!!!!!!!!!!!
but not that cute up close :)
Elephants are just like Iowans, they love sweet corn.


Elephant kisses aren't that soft. More like suctiony.


I was pretty scared to get so close to the elephants, especially with them guarding a baby. You know how if an ant is bothering you you can just roll it up in between your fingers and flick it away? That's what I thought the elephants would do to me. But they would have had to put forth even less effort, just lift a leg and put it down. Fortunately, they were much more focused on the bananas.