MQ2 (Moose Quest 2)

Posting has been difficult this trip. It seems that we are up early and back late every day. We have really enjoyed ourselves.

We drove up to New Jersey on Saturday. The drive was uneventful but the time with Jeff was nice since he lives away from home and we don't get to talk as much. On Sunday we dropped the kids off at camp after church and drove over to Fair Lawn to worship with Sewell and Caneta Hall. Sewell provided us with good directions to get us into New York and on to Westborough, Mass. where I had a meeting the next day. His directions, as well as those I had from MapQuest, took us across the Tappan Zee bridge into the New York City area. From there we would catch 95 and go up toward Boston.

We started out about 8:30 p.m. We had gotten onto I-287 going toward the Tappen Zee when the traffic stopped. Thousands of cars as far as we could see were forming a parking lot. Since the weather was cooler I rolled down the window. Upon hearing what sounded like an air-raid siren, I decided to turn on the radio. WCBS reports traffic every 8 minutes and so it wasn't long before we learned that Tappen Zee bridge was closed due to a major accident in which a tractor-trailer rig had crashed and burned. The bridge, they said, might not be opened by rush hour the next morning.

We slowly worked our way off the freeway and doubled back, going up I-87 and then over to I-84. At about 11 p.m. we finally began to make progress toward Boston. Needless to say it was a long night.

We arrived in Maine on Monday evening late. Our purpose for going to Maine was to continue our moose quest. Bruce Hudson, a friend who preaches in Bangor, told me he could guarantee that I would see a moose. I like those kinds of statements though I felt I should have qualified the assurance by insisting that the moose be alive, in the wild, and not on TV or a video.

On Bruce's suggestion we headed out Tuesday to Baxter State Park. Moose were a certainty there, Bruce said. On the way up we saw the Moose Crossing signs. We confidently drove on.

After that we saw one of those portable warning signs like you see telling about highway problems. This one said, "Be Alert. Moose crossing I-95" and it was flashing. What a deal, we thought. We kept our eyes peeled from that point forward. Suddenly up ahead we saw a car pulled over to the side. From the bushes we saw a moose start walking up toward the car. I said, "Those folks stopped to take a picture." We were really excited. As we got closer we realized that the moose was actually the driver of the car. Apparently he felt the need to inspect the roadside trees. Talk about buck fever! We had it really bad. We exited I-95 without seeing a moose.

Bruce had told me about that there was a particular pond where we should go. I called Bruce for directions but he didn't answer. It wasn't until we had left Baxter, disappointed and believing that moose and Bigfoot we very similar legends, that I received Bruce's voice mail with directions to the pond. We hadn't gone to the right spot and were, by then, many miles from Baxter.

Feeling disappointed, we made plans to take a scenic drive going toward Canada. Driving South on I-95 we noticed brake lights ahead. Then we saw our prize. A cow moose was trotting north up I-95 South. It was a good sight.

So you may think that the moose quest is now over. Well...not quite. You see, cow mooses (meece?) do not have antlers and I was not able to get a picture. So we are still on the moose quest though part of the quest has been fulfilled.

I have other pictures to post but I'll try to get them up in the next post. Until then, the quest continues.