MooseQuest

The word for the weekend was intrepid. What else could you say about "Let's go to Maine," at around 8:30 on Friday morning?

On the road by 9:24?

A thousand or so odd miles, some of them very odd indeed, in pursuit of the elusive moose?

And we did see moose. Moose on realty signs. Moose on stores. Moose on township names and lakes. Moose statues, moose figurines, moose menus. I even saw the neck and ear of a road killed moose on I 95.

The Golden Road

It is MUCH worse than it looks

We drove 59 miles (one way) on a dirt and "pavement" washboard, corduroy, "road" to see Moose Head Lake. We listened trustingly to the b*tch in the box....er...Garmin, who said that the thing we were on was a through road. We rolled along dodging hunters and other general madmen, driving at us at fifty or sixty mph in the middle of the road sending rooster tails of mud, rocks, and dust in our general direction......(she led us astray several other times and may find herself at the bottom of the Camaro sized pothole at the beginning of the Golden Road if she isn't careful.)

We drove and drove and drove for hours, only to find a checkpoint where we had to stop...yes, a checkpoint...manned by a pleasant, if dour, Canadian fellow who said when asked where the road went.

"Can-a-da."

Us, "What's out there?"

"Nothing much."

Us, "Can we make it?"

"I wouldn't advise it in your ve-hi-cle," he muttered, shaking his head at the muddy Camaro....because yeah, Camaro.....

He was very funny what with his dry way of looking at the loons from NY who drove a thousand miles to not see an actual live moose (hunting season just ended.....) and get a lot of mud on their car. I don't think he found us very amusing though. We turned around and drove 59 miles on back.

Alan was admiring the mud on the CamCam
when I suggested all it lacked was flames on the side...
so he made some....got some good laughs on the Interstate I'll tell you.

Oddly enough, other than being scared spitless on the "Golden Road", (the article guy's description of the road is a downright lie, except for the pickup trucks) we really had a lot of fun. 

We share the same sarcastic humor, so the jokes and quips and digs and squibs flew all weekend, and we laughed a lot, until we ran out of giddy-up-go and put a Ranger's Apprentice book on Audible on the car speakers for the last dark miles of the trip.


We saw mountains. Katahdin. Washington, and plenty of others perhaps less famous.... they were stunning...jaw dropping...wonderful...what with their shawls of lacy snow, scarves of dense grey clouds, and attitudes of haughty grandeur. I did not get one single good photo of any of them so you will have to trust me on this.....

We fell in love with New Hampshire. I could live there and I don't often say that of places that aren't NY.

Nonetheless, we were not sorry to see the bottom of the Northview driveway around 8 last night.. 

If you want to see pictures of actual moose...go here. We decided that if we ever do indeed go there we will not take the Camaro. Chevy did not intend her for off-roading. However, she deserves mad props for getting us there and getting us home and showing her mettle to everything Maine had to offer.