I am still looking for a camp counselor name (seee previous post), but other than that camp is really starting to roll along. On Monday, Amaris drove me up to camp in a drive that took a little bit longer than we thought, but I got to be with her the whole time so no complaints :P. She dropped me off in time for dinner (I found out that the food here is pretty dang good too), and I met a whole hoard of people who are up here. There are so many names and I have such a hard time remembering any of them. Apparently, this camp is pretty well known because there is a group from New York up here for a few weeks, and there a good percentage of the counselors that are from the New York/ Penn area.

After dinner, I got a ride from the grounds keeper to my cabin. We were talking for a while, and the topic of wildlife came up.

"Watch out for moose around here. They are more dangerous than even the bears because they generally have their babies with them. If you get between a momma and her baby, then you had better be ready to run. The good thing is that they have terrible eyesight, so you just have to get behind a tree and they should lose you."

I had heard this before, so I just put it in the back of my mind figuring that I would only see a moose if I went a little bit into the woods away from the cabins and the lakefront in front of the cabins. I left my stuff in my cabin and started to take a walk around all of the buildings of the camp. As I started to approach the waterfront by the cabins, I came to a fork in the road. One direction went down to the water, and the other went to a shack. I stopped in my tracks, because right by the shack was a huge moose staring right at me. Not only that, but she had a baby right next to her. I stopped in my tracks. I didn't know if she would come after me or what but I started looking for big enough trees around me, but all I found was bushes. She stared at me and I didn't move.

After what felt like an eternity, she turned and started walking through the bushes and grazing. I finally relaxed a little bit. I slowly started creeping towards the shack so that I could be safe while still getting a good look at this moose. I got to the shack as she continued to graze down. As I looked at her, I realized that she had a huge hump on the back of her neck, and that her baby was no where to be found. I could understand the baby hiding out, but I didn't know that moose could have humps... especially ones that big. I found out later that it was because she was irritated about me being there, and she must have been pretty pissed.

I sat down and watched her for a long while, and eventually she sat down too. At that point, I knew that this was going to be a good summer. A summer in Alaska.