Sunday, August 10, 2014

The great moose announcement

I have gone on quite extensively about my journey to the North Shore of Lake Superior to see moose. I talked about my moose prospecting from many points of view. And all of this culminated in my promise that today, August 10, I would announce whether or not, on my week long journey, I saw an actual, real life, moose.

This is it. Today is the day I announce whether I saw a moose!

Unfortunately I don't know. You see, it is not August 10 for me. I got a little worried that right at the end of my vacation (August 10 is the last day of it) I might be a little sad. I was worried that I wouldn't want to just yet launch into all my post vacation blogging. I wondered if I could, just to be on the safe side, write about whether or not I saw a moose ahead of time.

This seemed pretty challenging. I was a little stumped. But then I had an idea.

What if I listed the basic scenarios, as I see them, for all the possible variations in answering the question of whether I saw a moose. I don't know how to make a box in a blog post, but I can, at the start of each scenario, put a ( ). Then, no matter how committed I am to doing nothing right up til it's time to go back to work, all I have to do is go into my (this) blog post and simply put an X in the correct ( ), like so: (X).

So that's what I'll do. I feel that surely one of the following scenarios will be basically accurate. The one that is will have a (X) before it.



Did I See a Moose on Vacation?


(X) No, absolutely not. Outside of postcards and moose based bric-a-brac I did not even come close to seeing an actual moose. I did see some birds, and a squirrel. There are less than 5,000 moose in Minnesota. I was never going to see a moose.

( ) No. I thought I saw something move once though, sort of off somewhere in the shrubs and trees, and there was a sound too. This could have been any of a million different things: a frog, a bird, a hobo, a space alien, the wind, a monkey, a wolf, an animate pine cone, and so on, but one of the things it also could have been, was a moose. So I could have seen a moose, but I am uncomfortable checking a "yes" box on this basis.

( ) Yes. We were driving up to the lake house. We were on the main highway. There, on the side of the road, was a moose. It looked a bit scraggly. It happened so early in the trip, and with the sighting from a car on the highway, it just wasn't as exciting as I imagined it would be. 

( ) Yes. Unless it was a dream. But it wasn't a dream! I woke in the middle of the night, and though I knew it would be bitterly cold I stepped out on the balcony of our house to take in the brilliant stars over Lake Superior. There, down just above the shoreline was a moose, nosing about. He had big antlers. He was huge. I looked at him for awhile. Then he turned and looked at me. And here's why I have this dream suspicion even though it wasn't a dream. The moose looked at me, and he winked. Then he ambled off. Well, at least he wasn't white. I would not have been able to believe it if he was a white moose.

( ) Yes. Out for a hike on the Superior Trail I mistakenly wandered onto an abandoned spur trail. Trying to cut back to the main trail I found the undergrowth got thicker and thicker. The mosquitoes were driving me insane, and I plowed off in the wrong direction and became completely lost. I wandered for a long time, growing thirsty and exhausted.  Finally I missed a step on a steep hill and rolled messily to the bottom. Bruised, bitten, lost, and very thirsty I heard someone coming towards me. "Thank god" I thought "Help has arrived!" But it wasn't help. It was a moose.

4 comments:

  1. Yes, you saw a moose. I know this because I am here, outside your window where you are on your last day at Lake Superior. I see you there tending to your bruises and many mosquito bites. At my side is your hero Moose, who simply watches quietly as heroes do, then with a wink walks slowly off to the wilderness.

    ReplyDelete
  2. No, you did not see a Moose, but a Moose saw you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ain't that always the way.

      OH, by the way, am typing up all my long hand vacation posts, guess who is featured in one? Grape the moose!!!! Except he is not a moose in it. It is an old story of magic!

      Delete

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