Category Archives: animals

Moose up the Road Apiece!

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Rangeley, a town in Franklin county Maine has a population of around 1200 until the tourists come to town. Rangeley is the center of the Rangeley Lakes Region, a major resort area.

It looks like a June vacation will be an excellent time as far as the weather is concerned. Watch me jinx us by making a statement like that! But really. When I check the average temps the average high in June is 69 degrees and the average low is 47 degrees. Nice sweater weather. Of course they did have a record high of 90 degrees and a record low of 27 degrees. There’s been no snow in June and only an average rainfall of less than 5 inches. But if it rains there’s a bowling alley. We can all go bowling!

I want to go to Maine in June for the moose. The moose is the state animal of Maine. Moose spotting becomes an activity late spring to Mid-summer. Seems to me June falls right in the middle of that range. The best time for spotting moose seems to be early morning or evening and noon to 2 pm. Sounds like moose like to have lunch too!

Calves are born in late May to early June right on track with our June vacation . I can visualize the photos now. Early morning has such beautiful light!

One of the activities I’m thinking about is a Moose Safari. There are both walking safaris and water safaris in canoes or kayaks . I know how to canoe but I’ve never been kayaking. That would be a new adventure. Plus there’s plenty of hiking trails. Also sounds like a lot of waterfalls on these trails.

One location in particular that caught my eye is The Hunter Cove Wildlife Sanctuary, sitting along Route 4 between Rangeley and the town of Oquossoc, the sanctuary offers nearly two miles of looped, flat, hiking trails leading through moose country. The sanctuary, as well as the lakes, is home to deer, foxes, loons and other bird and animal species.

I’m used to wildlife sanctuaries. I visit them in Massachusetts all the time so this might belong on my list.

I’m ready for June to arrive and my Maine wildlife adventure to begin.

Travel Quote of the Day

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“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Yes, I can identify.  Can you? It’s like having an itch you can’t scratch. I bet it’s what a cat feels when they want to go out only to turn around and come back in. We just have to go somewhere! Anywhere! NOW!

I think that’s why I moved every 2 years or so when I was younger, before I invested in a condo that keeps me rooted in one place. The plan was to buy a home, live there for 4-5 years and sell for a profit but the real estate bubble burst and with it my wandering days were severely curtailed.

So now I grab the opportunities as the come. If sometimes I have to work at it to find an adventure, then so be it. Travel is in my blood!

 

 

A Letter to Mom

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Hi Mom

I’m glad you liked the whale photo. The funny thing is that I didn’t even know I got it until I got back home. I took it on the very first whale watch I went on, the Sunrise Photo Safari!

It looked blurry on the little LED screen so I kept going out on more whale watches to try to get that breaching whale picture. They were fun anyway. Can you believe its just a baby whale? There’s nothing to show the scale but if Mama was around you’d see it’s only a little  2 ton baby!

I know you want to know what’s up for the June trip to Rangeley Lake. There’s not much to tell at the moment. I know Sandy is doing some research on the internet to see what’s in the area to do and see.

It all started when I did a search for the best time to see Moose in Maine. The article I read recommended Moose-head lake which is about 3.5 hours north of Rangeley Lake but there was no time share at Moose-head Lake so I looked into Rangeley and that was also suggested for wildlife…moose, bears, loons, foxes, eagles and the list goes on. So I booked the only accommodation that was available,  a 3 bedroom unit! (I think it’s a cabin)

I didn’t want to be rattling around in a 3 bedroom cabin all by myself. It seemed greedy somehow. I’d be keeping a family from getting away to Rangeley for their vacation. Then I thought, why not see if Sandy and Mom want to come. It less expensive since there’s no plane fare involved. There’s a kitchen so we don’t have to eat out every night. Everyone can have their own bedroom. Sandy will have her own car so no one has to depend on me if I’m off taking photos.

 

The best wildlife photos are in the early morning and late afternoon so I figured I’d have time during the day  to join you guys in things you may want to do and we’d have the evenings to just kick back.

Other than that, I haven’t thought much about the trip. I’m looking forward to us getting together like this. We don’t have much chance to do it with me in Massachusetts and you guys in New York. Sometimes it seems like we’re miles apart. Life is just so busy! This is a chance to slow down a little.

 

The #1 Vacation

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It’s so hard to chose one vacation as the best. Every vacation has a high point, a sight or event that makes it special. Some have several but as I sit back and review the places I’ve been so far I keep going back to one particular vacation. It may come as a surprise to you when I tell you that my #1, absolute favorite vacation so far was our trip to South Dakota.

Maybe it was because I had no expectations for it so it couldn’t fail to live up to anything.

 As Sandy and I prepared for the trip my friends all asked me, What’s in South Dakota? What could I say at that point? Mount Rushmore? I really had no idea.

 We stayed in Rapid City. I remember that even though we were tired from the time zone changes and plane travel, I insisted we start exploring right away. We were burning daylight and thus started a jaw dropping adventure where each day was better than the one before.

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 Our first view of the Badlands was as an afternoon sun was dropping toward the horizon. The lower angle brought out the colors and made the whole scene surreal. Throw in some animals, deer, rabbits, pronghorns and it was magical.

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Wait, was that a Unicorn?

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The vacation continued like that.

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Buffalo herds in Custer State Park along with some silly wild “beggin'” burros.

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More pronghorns, prairie dogs, wild horses, big horn sheep even dinosaurs.

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We laughed ourselves silly on what we named “the longest dirt road in the world” when we got lost on the reservation looking for a Pow Wow.

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We passed through beautiful land and saw more animals and very few people.

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We road an 1880’s steam train and went deep underground in Wind Cave National Park.

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And oh yes, we did see Mount Rushmore. That was pretty awesome too but not the main event by any means.

Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore

So you see, I get excited just reliving that vacation. Even though I love Hawaii and Florida and so many other places I’ve been,  this one is still the #1 Vacation.

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How NOT to have a productive day

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Editor in Chief

I was trying to choose a post to share and ran across one of Rocky’s old posts. Just goes to show that I’m still scrambling for things to write.  Re-reading it made me laugh so here is is. I hope you enjoy this old re-run. 

Hi. It’s me, Editor-In-Chief Rocky, here to make our apologizes for the missing post today. Our traveling correspondent and main author, Dusty Roads, is having a BAD day. And that is really bad with a capital B! She just locked herself out of the house for the 2nd time in a week.  It wouldn’t have been so bad if the spare key she keeps hidden hadn’t fallen out of its hiding place yesterday and she brought it inside and yes, you guessed it, she didn’t put it back out.

So now she’s spent all morning running around trying to find a way to get back in. Inspiration finally hit her. The pet sitter, my 2nd favorite human, has a spare set. So She called Diane and yes, Diane had the keys with her so off Dusty went to pick them up.

She just got back in and wanted to put the spare key back out in its secret place and, well, umm, let’s just say it was shiny and it had tape on it…two of my favorite things. Well, I don’t think she’s in the mood for me to tell her where it is right now.  She’s turning the diningroom and livingroom upside down and inside out because she knows she left it on the diningroom table yesterday.

I think I’d better just sit back and watch. Sooner or later she will give up and I can sneak it back out  for her to find. It is rather amusing watching her stress out like this. But I can tell you any creative juices have taken a run for it for today.

SCOUT

SCOUT

Scout is preparing a Scout’s Tips column for tomorrow in case Dusty is not back on track by then.  So please accept my apologizes and thanks for your patience.

Rocky