Today I took a long walk all the way into town. After visiting with my aunt & uncle for a while, I took the bus back. Instead of riding the bus all the way home, I got off at a stop where I could walk the rest of the way home faster than riding the rest of the way on the bus. The bus makes a lot of stops!

As I arrived at the corner where I was about to take a path that winds down a side road, I saw this sign across the street…

(not a great photo – took it with my phone and had to zoom a lot)

In the winter, I often walk this path. The trees are bare and the snowbanks on both sides are high. As I started to walk down the path today, I noticed how full the trees are with leaves that make it difficult to see ahead as the path curves. The thought crossed my mind for a minute about possibly running into a moose but then I thought what would be the chance of that?

Lost in thought as I continued to walk along the path, a woman standing on a deck above me said “There’s a moose sitting on the grass right ahead of you”. I was startled as she spoke and immediately froze. I asked her if it was the momma with her two babies. She said it was a male moose.  He was sitting inches from the path about 3 feet ahead of me around the next curve!

It would have been very cool to get up close to him, but I am not a fool. I immediately turned around and walked back, crossed the street and walked on the side of the road since there is no sidewalk on that side of the street. As I got to the point where the moose was, I looked through the trees and could see him sitting in the grass right by the path. He was beautiful! It was pretty tough to get a photo though. I did happen to have my DSLR camera with me but not my zoom lens.

As I stood across the street watching the moose, another lady walked down the path. I could see her talking to the woman on the deck. She decided to walk by the moose. Not only did she walk right by the moose, but she then stood about 2 feet from him for quite a while. She was very lucky that the moose did not charge her!   At this point a family with 2 dogs crossed the street. Luckily for them, they were taking a different path. The dogs started barking loudly and the moose got up.

I took this photo of the moose. Another person I spoke to while watching the moose said he thought it was one of the babies. Hard to see him, but if you look closely, you might be able to make him out.

I’ve been closer to a moose a couple of times in a car this past winter, seeing a momma moose and her two babies, but this was my first almost close encounter on foot.