Activity day 1: the hunt for moose begins!

You may be aware that I have a thing for moose. They are like my spirit animal: they are big and seem kinda slow and dumb but if you get in their way they will crush you. My children and my Canadian friends have been enabling this fetish for far too long. I have moose jewelry, moose clothing, stuffed moose, etc. I have seen moose up close: one fabulous weekend of dog sledding and snowshoeing in northern Minnesota we saw nearly a dozen moose over the course of 4 days. Frank, however, has never seen one in person. Even though we made countless trips to Vermont when Jesse was at UVM, we never saw a moose. We saw a camel (don’t ask!) but no matter the season, we never saw a moose.

So it was not a coincidence that I chose Moosehead Lake for this trip. In this region, moose outnumber people 3-1 (or so all the tourist brochures say) so we are ready to see a moose. Frank even got a new camera for his birthday – 6 weeks early! – so he can be ready to photograph the mythical moose. This is a warning that there will be lots of “moose hunting” references should you choose to read more than one of these posts.

Today was to be our first “activity” day of the trip. And by that I mean, we spent more time out of the car than in it. This is the first trip in memory where I have nothing planned. And I do mean NOTHING. Other than where we will be sleeping each night, I have made no reservations or arrangements of any kind. (The planner in me is being squashed by the part of my spirit that is SO happy to not be in the house. My inner Sybil will have a reckoning at some point!)

So after a good night’s sleep, we cooked a lovely breakfast (scrambled eggs and sausage with GF toast), had some locally roasted coffee and did some research. The weather forecast was not looking great (chance of severe storms in the afternoon – yippee!) so we decided to stick close to home and hike Little Moose Mountain. The chances of a moose sighting there would be slim but still the trail had the right name. Apparently this used to be called “Little Squaw Mountain” but apparently Maine got woke a while back and renamed it. The planned hike was a great first day activity: about 3 1/2 miles with 600 feet elevation climb (mantra: when given a choice go up!) with fantastic views of Little and Big Moose ponds. There was only one other car at the trailhead so we would get some real peace and quiet. And off we went.

First point about today’s hike: the people that maintain this trail are AWESOME! Well marked and well cleared with planking over the worst of the marshy bits, it was so nice to not have to be overly concerned about getting lost or sucked into massive mud bogs. Of course they didn’t manage to get rid of the flying annoyances. Grrr! We were well covered in bug spray but apparently midges are immune. They spent most of the morning trying to land on our eyeballs – why is that? – and a few actually managed to settle under the eyelid. Ugh. Otherwise the hike was serene and the scenery magnificent. We had the entire trail to ourselves until we hit the overlook at the top and met the folks from Massachusetts who’s car we parked next to. (Small world item: their daughter is a student at St. John Fischer in Rochester!) We took in the breath taking views and enjoyed the stirring breezes until we realized that with the wind came the rain.

We started back to the trail to finish the loop as the skies opened up. We had enough canopy to keep deluge at a trickle but there was no staying dry. The rain kept the midges away for a little while but they never really left us. We finished after a couple of hours just as the rain let up so we could put the top on the convertible down and try to dry off a little on our way into Greenville for lunch.

We pulled in to Kelly’s Landing right behind an ATV whose riders were covered in mud so we knew we couldn’t be the worst dressed people in the place. We picked this particular restaurant because it had a good selection of gluten free items and I was not disappointed. I had a FRIED haddock sandwich on a GF bun with sweet potato fries. They have a dedicated friar and use GF breading. Heaven!!! Frank had his first Maine lobster roll – the proper way with mayo not that butter stuff. What an excellent lunch!

Then it was time to explore the town a bit. Greenville is one of the largest towns nearby situated at the bottom point of Moosehead Lake. There are so many kitschy shops with moose on everything. We picked up a few things for fun, hit the grocery store again and headed back to the flat just as the skies opened up again. We contemplated going out to dinner tonight but the weather is crap and we are staying in the middle of nowhere. We picked a rental apartment that is out of the way on purpose because we are trying to avoid people as much as possible. So instead we dined on spaghetti with clam sauce (even the canned clams are local!) with a bottle of unoaked chardonnay and a Caesar-style salad. Then some cards and an early bed. Gotta get up early cuz who knows what we’ll be doing tomorrow!

Statistics for today: