Lincoln Lamb embarks on a ride on Cletus thanks to one of the camel employees of Eli's Camel Rides at the Hope Watermelon Festival's Kidz Zone Friday afternoon.

On Watermelon Festival Day Two, two camels named Cletus and Cameron joined the Kidz Zone. For $10 a ride, youngsters, or anyone else, can step up the platform, take a seat between the humps and sample a smooth trot around an acre or so of Fair Park ground.

Eli Vanover has been working with camels for about 15 years, starting out in Adair, Oklahoma. Asked how his charges would eat a Hope watermelon, Vanover said, "Probably step on it and crush it, then eat it." It isn't a sight he intends to treat attendees to, but it does evoke an image.

His most harrowing moment as a camel guy came a few years ago when he learned from a wee hours phone call a gate had been left open and his tandem had wandered out and begun to journey out on the highway. "By the time I got there they had stripped leaves and apples from the side." And who can blame them?

Vanover assured us the camels intend no harm to their riders. He said they are especially good with kids. Lincoln Lamb tested that as we watched and the camel was as gentle as the young tyke's last name.