Thursday, July 21, 2011

Move Over Moose

I drove to a family reunion in Utah, and found myself driving in the middle of the night. I had planned to stop in Tonopah, Nevada for the night, but arrived there so early, that I decided to drive on to Caliente to stay the night. But when I got there, there were no motel rooms available, so I had to drive on to Cedar City. I crossed over the border in to Utah, and began to drive up a long winding road that snaked over some low mountains. As I turned a corner, I saw something in the middle of the road ahead of me. In that split second, it resembled a tree, but also reminded me of the "troll" in "Harry Potter". As I looked carefully, I saw what I'm pretty sure was a moose! I was worried that it might get startled and run in to my car, and I knew that would be a terrible accident. It TOWERED over my car! I quickly swerved in to the other lane and went around him. I said to my son, "Did you see that moose?!" Then I thought to myself, "Do they have moose here? That must have been an elk." But it looked like a moose. Later as I talked to some of my relatives, I found that they do have moose there. I'm pretty sure that's what it was. He didn't seem the least bit afraid of me, and with good reason! Wow he was big!!

5 comments:

Rummuser said...

You will be alright any where in the world if you can drive in India where you will find cattle, dogs, pigs, chicken and human beings suddenly popping up from nowhere, all the time.

Becky said...

Glad you were able to avoid the moose. My brother wasn't quite so lucky several years ago. (He was fine, but my parents' car was totaled!) And I hope you had a great time at your reunion :)

Grannymar said...

I have driven through the night and into the dawn in Scotland, but thankfully never encountered any wild life like that along the way.

Sandy@American Way Farm said...

Here in NH we have signs at various locations along our roadways that read "Brake for moose. It could save your life". I often wondered what fool would see an animal that big standing in the road and speed up! Then we had a friend who told us he saw some moose on the side of the road and tried to drive around them. As he approached with his vehicle they started to run. So he went faster trying to get ahead of them. Then they went faster, and so on. The moose probably thought he was chasing them. I guess I finally met someone who those signs were intended for. :)

Looney said...

Glad you were safe. My friend from Montana says that when the car hits the moose, it is the car that ends up as road kill.