10 days driving around the south of Alaska, and not a Prius in sight. Bliss! Other blissful things included:
-very, very few cars on the road
-very, very few billboards at the side of the road. The most frequent (meaning every 10 miles) warned drivers to “Give Moose a Brake”.
-very warm, welcoming locals.
-good beer.
-stunning scenery.
I could go on, but I won’t. Except to tell you about the most exciting and unexpected part of my trip…..
To put this in context, this was my fourth trip to Alaska but, despite the locals swearing up and down that moose were wandering about everywhere, I had yet to set eyes on one. Arriving for trip number 4, I was now obsessed with seeing the elusive moose.
My friends (locals) were confident I would be successful. They told me the moose come out at the end of the day and stand by the sides of the road, chewing on trees and shrubs. They then will probably try to cross the road, apparently not too concerned about the trucks going 60 miles/hr in both directions. Let’s just say that no-one goes home unscathed after a collision with a moose the size of a horse.
My friends let me sit in the front seat of the car on every journey, so I could scour the trees either side of the road. Up and down the highway we went, for hours on end, but no moose. This was getting personal. Maybe I needed to go driving later at night, through the forest, or hiking into the back country? I was determined to do whatever was needed.
Later that night, when thoughts of moose hunting had been put to bed, my friends were playing guitar and fiddle in a local coffeehouse. I went to listen to them and after the show was over, I helped them get all their guitars, violins, microphones, music stands etc back out to the car. The coffeehouse was in a strip mall in the center of town, next to a busy highway. We staggered out of the door, into the bright light of an Alaskan evening. We had taken no more than two steps across the (almost empty) parking lot before something caught our eye.
There, about 10 feet away, was a huge, gangly moose trotting across the parking lot!! My friends, who have seen this before, just laughed. “Well, there’s your moose!” they said. My mouth was hanging open. What kind of crazy place is this?!! We all stopped laughing and held our breath as the moose made a bee-line for the busy highway, only stepping back onto the sidewalk as the cars in it’s path started honking. It paused for a couple of seconds and then headed right back across the road. They have a death wish, apparently. Now it all makes sense. “Give moose a brake”……because they are very large and not very bright. If they see a car or a truck, they like to run in front of it.
I hope to see another moose on my next trip, maybe in a habitat a little more natural than the parking lot of a strip mall. But, I thoroughly enjoyed my first, unexpected encounter with this very strange beast!
Philomena
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