Hi, Everyone!
I’m back from my Maine adventure with Joe-san and Nancy-san!
It was a loooooooooooooooooong ride to Maine but I thought I was getting closer to seeing a moose. As soon as we got to Maine, I started to see moose signs. I wanted to get started moose-watching right away, but we needed to get settled at base camp first. Joe-san showed me the new float and Nancy-san dived right in. She swims and swims, even when the water is very cold. BRRRR! I was a good helper and life guard.
I started looking around base camp for moose, but I didn’t see any. Joe-san said we could do some things to attract a moose. I helped Joe-san bake pesto bread, then we went into Camden to get supplies. We got goat cheese from Marjorie, my friend from my last visit. Joe-san said we might need a moose call and some moose snacks, so we got those. We got a book about moose from the library, so I could learn more about moose.
One day, we woke early, had breakfast and went by the lake and river looking for moose. We stopped at a moose blind for a while but no moose came by. We decided to look somewhere else so we drove to the back of the mountain, parked and walked in 2 and three quarters miles to a lodge and came back to the bald rock trail. We climbed the half-mile up and saw Lincolnville Beach, the Atlantic Ocean, Camden Harbor and lots of Islands from about 1300 feet. We walked the half-mile out then back to the parking lot. We drove back to base camp and I plopped down on the couch. Six and one half miles plus the almost 3 miles this morning. Looking for moose is tiring.
I kept looking for moose out the window of base camp, but I started to wonder if I was ever going to see one. When I sat by the fireplace at night, I thought I heard a moose, but Nancy-san told me it was an owl.
Then Joe-san and Nancy-san took me to have dinner with their friends, John-san and Karen-san. John-san has seen lots of moose! He showed me where to go to find them — Moosehead Lake. Joe-san made reservations at Pittston Farms, a lodge just north of Moosehead Lake. It is located in the northwest corner of Maine not far from Quebec in a large area that is all woods. This is going to be quite an adventure.
We started early to drive north to Moosehead Lake. Moosehead Lake is very big and very pretty with small islands in it. A little further up the road we got on a dirt-logging road (the Twenty Mile Road) and really went twenty miles on it till we got to Pittstown Farms. The farm used to grow food and house loggers who worked there a long time ago but now it caters to hunters, fishermen, snomobiler’s and ATV-ers. We set out looking for moose at about one thirty PM and walked by a swamp and a lake that is used to make hydropower electricity. We took a few side trails off the road and on one trail found moose footprints in the mud! But no moose. We went back to the lodge for dinner. After dinner I practiced with my moose call for a while and turned in.
I had this dream that I was face to face with a moose and when I woke up I was. I saw a moose!!! We left to come back to base camp and Joe-san made a wrong turn onto the road that we walked on yesterday and a few miles down the road we saw a mommy moose and her baby moose walking on the road!!!!!! They are really BIG but they were too far away for Nancy-san to get a picture of them before they went back into the woods. Nancy-san didn’t want to get any closer so we watched them for a while.
We turned back and got on the right road and drove back to base camp. I was very excited to see a real moose, even if we didn’t get a picture!
When I woke up at base camp the next day, I found a new friend! Moose-san and I spent some time talking about my adventures, then we helped Joe-san and Nancy-san pack up to head home. I wanted to help drive and Moose-san wanted to be the navigator, but Nancy-san said that wouldn’t be good helping.
The trees were changing color on the way down the coast and into New Hampshire. We showed Moose-san some of the places that we stopped at on the way up and Nancy-san would tell us about towns and places we were seeing. We stayed in Nashua NH overnight so Joe-san and Nancy-san could visit their good friend, Father Joe.
The next day, we drove into New York state. On the thruway we went along the Mohawk River and parts of the old Erie Canal and saw the locks that help boats adjust to different water levels just like on our river cruise adventure. I told Moose-san about my adventure on the rivers in Germany and explained how locks worked.
When we got back to Rochester, I had a hard time getting to sleep thinking about all the exciting things I had experienced on the great moose quest, the patrols, the pretty trees, the lake, the hikes in the mountains, seeing some real moose, finding a new friend Moose-san and cooking with Joe-san.
Joe-san made us a nice dinner for my last night here. Moose-san and I were going off to choir practice with Nancy-san so we hugged Joe-san and said goodbye. At church, I met some people called the night knitters then saw Averil-san and Mike-san and Papa Dick-san and best of all Grandma.
As I listened to the pretty singing I kept wondering what my next adventure will be.
Maybe looking for the Great Sodus Bay Monster in the weeds or maybe something like wrestling with five hundred pounds of flour making and baking cinnamon rolls.
Love,
Lion-san