De Ja Moose

I don't for the life of me know why i woke up when i did. It may have been a weird feeling somewhere in my subconscious, or it may have been the tingle of my cold toes. When my eyes popped open, there, right beside the camper was a young moose browsing on the foliage surrounding our rig. 

Looking out the camper window, 6 am.

I tumbled out of bed and grabbed the camera. My movement must have caught it's eye, because it turned and sauntered into the brush. Durring this excitement, Kobi the wonder dog, slept soundly. He was probably aware of the huge critter, but since it was not trying to climb into the camper, he just kept his eyes closed and rested. 

With the moose gone, I climbed back under the warm covers and looked out the window.  Once when we were camped in this exact camp sight we woke to a cow moose checking out our camp. Check out the blog entry called "16 1/2 Mile Camp Cd'A River". 

A cow on the alert.

We drove up the Coeur d'Alene River on Friday night. I picked Linda up at Fernan and we the trek along this beautiful river. As we drove, trees reflected in the clear water and it's surface was rippled by fish dimples as they sipped the evening hatch.

This little guy was in a hurry.

At the Teddy Creek camp area we pulled in but all the sites were taken by hunting camps.  It looked like the US Army had set up base camp in this area, these boys were here to stay! It took us about two minutes to turn around and head back up river.  We spotted empty camps at the rock beach and also up Flat Creek but we continued on to the 16 1/2 Mile camp that we like so well.  Linda jogged down in and came back with two thumbs up so I slowly pulled down, turned around and backed into place.  The camp was a mess, but Linda and I come prepared and the clean-up only took about ten minutes. Why is it OK to put beer cans, glass bottles and aluminum foil into the camp fire? Also, why do people not consider cigarette butts litter? I ponder these two questions every time we go out camping. The cigarette but thing is everywhere. I see people drop their butts on the street every time I come to a stop light.  I don't get it!

If you look close you can see the calf's face hidden.

With camp set we cooked a great meal of hot dogs over the grill and then took Kobi fro his evening walk.  We cleaned up, played cribbage and went to bed.

After the excitement of the moose morning we ate scones and drank our morning brews. Linda had taken Kobi for a run down river and so once we were finished with our morning meal we headed up river for a walk.

About a half mile up river we came to one of our favorite game viewing areas and sure enough there were two moose browsing in the back water of the river.  We spotted a cow moose and her young one.  As soon as we were noticed the cow had her little one take cover.  I got a shot of the little moose scampering into the brush but was never able to get a good shot of it or the two  moose together.  I did get some nice shots of the mother moose, she was concerned, but was not in a supper hurry to leave.  She gathered up the young one and they moved away from the road after about fifteen minutes.


We walked back to down the road waving at passing cars and chatting with a fisherman.  I looked across the river and something caught my eye.  Laying on the warm rocks, up on a far cliff side was a light gray spot that didn't look right.  We stopped and watched.  As soon as I confirmed that the gray spot was a coyote basking in the sun, it got nervous and slowly moved out.  I was able to get a couple shots of it and using some software, I cropped the best on down.  You can see the critter in the first shot but it is much clearer in the second.  I confirmed it to be a coyote, Linda wanted it to be a wolf.  She has "seeing a wolf in the wild" on her bucket list and really wanted to mark that one off.

Back at camp I got the fly rod out and went fishing. Linda and Kobi played in the river and we enjoyed our day.  I took a few pictures of Kobi and just as I did a group of Mergansers swam past. Kobi couldn't resist the chase and I thought it was a classic series of photos showing our dogs never ending attempt to catch animals and birds.  He has never been successful, but he never gives up either. 
Back at the camper we built a fire and ate dinner.  We slept well and got up at a decent hour.  Rain had moved in and the sound of the drops hitting the roof rousted us out of bed.  It was a short shower, but we packed up early and drove home just the same.  Linda had work to do at school and I needed to take the camper off the truck.  I have a few upcoming adventures that will call for a truck without a camper and so I used the rest of the Sunday afternoon to drop it off at the Anderson's.

"What's that?

"I'll get em!"

"What ever."