Moose On The Loose

For a group that doesn't own a watch and can't tell time, most wild animals seem awful regulated, and often at odds with the human world.

Both fishing and hunting, for example, seem to require getting up really early. Fish apparently, consider breakfast the only meal worth eating. Miss that and you miss your chance to land a couple of big ones (though, luckily, the serious fishing time ends just as the serious beer drinking time begins). If the weather is cold, rainy or just plain horrible, that increases the odds that the fish or animals will be waiting for you.

We're leaving for Maine tomorrow, and the two things I've learned is that if you want to see a moose you have to:

1) Get up at 5:30 a.m.

2) Kayak a great distance away from your cabin (the point where your arms feel like they're about to fall off is usually perfect)

The third thing I've learned is that if someone else goes moose "hunting" (actually "moose looking") and brings back a photo, it will look for all the world like a large brown rock in the distance. You won't regret sleeping in.

For those whose moose knowledge begins and ends with Bullwinkle, this is quite a disappointment. Having said that, it makes the decision not to get up at 5:30 on a perfectly fine vacation morning very easy.

Every year (this will be our fourth summer Maine trip) my wife and brother-in-law go looking for moose at least one morning, and my wife proudly brings back her camera to show me this year's picture of a far away brown rock. Sadly, she never gets the thrilled reaction she wants.

From either the moose or me.

(We're off to Maine, far from computers and the Internet, so I won't be posting for 10 days or so. Keep smiling.)