Last week, I told you my favorite moose adventure while kayaking. I have more! Once, when Linda and her daughter, Susie, and I did a Sunday evening kayak ride down the Little Spokane River, we ran into all kinds of fun.
We saw osprey, ducks, beavers swam under our boats—did you ever see them do their drying-off-after-the-shower routine? No kidding. After floating under my boat, a beaver got on the bank of the river and rubbed himself down. I could nearly see the towel in his paws as he dried his backside, under his arms, across his belly. We laughed so hard our boats shook.
But the standout is—ta DA! The moose! He was up the hill from where we stalled our boats to watch him. He was a big guy. What a rack on his head! He eyed us as we watched him tearing bushes out of the hillside to dine on. Every now and then, he would pause to rumble, then continue to eat. We stayed still. Didn’t want to spook him, but wanted to observe. It’s not every day you can scrutinize a moose’s eating habits, after all!
However, he started to move a step at a time down towards the river, but he never stopped eating. He rumbled a little louder. We figured he had all the rights in the area and we should move. So we started paddling furiously, and sure enough, when we got far enough away and turned to look, he was in the water, drinking his fill.
Another time, Linda and I were at Twin Lakes, Idaho. It was the end of the day, and we were heading back in after a lovely paddle around Upper Twin that afternoon.
I was admiring all the lovely colors of the lilies on their sturdy water pads when suddenly, Linda stopped. I didn’t want to ram her boat and had to do some fancy back paddling. She nodded her head to the left of us.
Oh boy! There was Marty the Moose neck deep in the water, about as far away from me as my dining room table is from my living room chair. We saw the whites of his eyes. Yikes! Marty was chomping away. I have read, in some slight research, that moose pretty much live to eat.
We were wondering if we were invading his space and how fast he could move in the water. However, Marty didn’t seem to care if we were there. We just sat quiet and he just kept eating. So, after a while, we quietly drifted away with our paddles and made it safely to shore.
I do love kayaking! What a way to appreciate God’s creation!
“O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is your Name in all the earth,” Psalm 8:1.
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